The Monster You Made
by RobinRocks
Summary: LxLight. The truth is, he might owe him his life, but Light Yagami never realised that letting L in on his secret would be so... dangerous. Cowritten with Narroch. DISCONTINUED.
1. Chapter I

Oh, my. Here we are again. O.o

To all the readers of _Poison Apple_ we tipped off about this a while back… Sorry it took so long. Incidentally I'm just going to go right back to blaming Narroch…

(Speaking of _Poison Apple_, thankyou so much to everyone who read it! It stands now at, I believe, **2033** reviews – which I think may be the highest review count for any story in the _Death Note_ FFNet section! I wouldn't like to stake my life on it, but I haven't seen one so far with higher than that… So THANKYOU, everyone! We're so glad you enjoyed it – and the special "fairytale" addition at the end! In fact, **Perdue** liked it so much that she wrote a fanfic for it! Indeed, a fanfic for a fanfic! O.o It's called _Human_ and there's a link on my profile under the AMV links if you want to read it – it's a little MelloxNear oneshot.)

Okay, so. This story. We hope you like it. I can say with confidence right now that it won't be as epic as _Poison Apple_, and there are also no Disney princesses. But we hope you like it anyway!

After all, it's still LxLight, and that's what you guys liked best about _Poison Apple_ anyway, right?

:)

The Monster You Made

L slammed him up against the wall.

"I don't think you want to die, Yagami-kun," he said; his voice, normally masked in monotone, was suddenly colored with anger, frustration – a moody, venomous mix that slid the threat into Light's mind far more effectively than the fists clenched in his shirt.

It was rare for L to show such crude behavior – his cautious causal reasoning would make even the most stringent empiricist envious. But he was also creative, willing to take risks and change the variables if it promised results. Revealing himself to Light while they were in university together was an example of that rashness, his attempt to startle a response. This unanticipated violence was no different and Light's eyes narrowed, his own anger visibly hardened in the amber.

"I don't think _I_ need to reply to that," he bit out, pushing against L's skeletal fists, still twisted in the material of his shirt. "Why would you say that?"

L gave him an icy smile, matching the derision that still tinted his words.

"Yes, alright," he murmured. "I expected you to keep playing the Denial card, even now."

"I'm _not_ Kira. We just caught Higuchi, a watershed in the case that was desperately needed, and yet you still insist on hanging on to these illogical threads. What the hell is _wrong_ with you?"

L only snorted glibly in response before tightening his grip.

"The watershed _you_ needed, you mean. …Of course, it's the same answer as always."

"_You're_ the one who's like a damned broken record," Light spat. "Even now, when my innocence has been proven—"

"I might have known you'd assume that. That you'd have predicted, even _hoped_ for, that. But as it remains, right now nothing has been _proven_ either way…" L trailed off, perhaps hoping Light would be tempted to fill in the silence of the elliptical wake and reveal a clue.

Light ignored the bait and thrust his hands against L's chest, finally shoving him off.

"You make me sick," he said angrily. "Why can't you just accept that you're wrong?"

"Because I'm not wrong."

"First time for everyth—"

"_No_, Yagami-kun." L gazed at him hatefully. "I'm _not wrong_."

For all his excuses, deflections and premeditated answers, Light was struck speechless now, silenced by L's fierce, aggressive adamancy even in the face of the "evidence" that he usually valued so highly.

"And unless you do something about it very soon," L went on, his voice softer but no less vicious, "you're going to die."

* * *

L was cornering him.

Despite the fact that Light had already knocked down all the walls surrounding the case, L was still somehow cornering him. It was infuriating and nerve-racking that the detective could continue to proclaim Light as the prime Kira suspect (and Kira himself under his breath and behind veiled threats), even when his alibi was now airtight thanks to the manipulation of the Death Note rules. Light didn't know what other argument he could give, since the exonerating evidence should have spoken for itself. He'd set this all up very carefully, and although L had never really had any sort of concrete, tangible evidence against him, only his tenacious suspicion, now he definitely had nothing whatsoever to stand upon.

They'd caught Higuchi with the Death Note, he'd admitted to having used it, and then Light had killed him before he could be questioned further – and had done so right in front of L. More or less.

Not to mention that he'd thought ahead, predicted – as L had said – this outcome, and prepared the Death Note with the fake thirteen day rule that all but cleared he and Misa from suspicion.

So. Yes. L _wasn't_ wrong.

He was going to have a hard time proving it, however.

Not that that seemed to matter to the detective right now. Light was still chained to him, L clinging to the teenager, his only suspect despite everything, in a desperate bid to be proven correct. Light saw right through the charade in disgust, but still the key to the handcuffs wasn't produced.

L hadn't won – but he hadn't lost yet, either.

Light could only take comfort in the fact that L's earlier violence probably stemmed from the detective's frustration. Even though L acted secure in his own knowledge, Light could tell that he was getting desperate.

All Light had to do was wait him out, and not trip up in the process.

Light slept on the same side of the bed he'd been sleeping in for the past few months, the handcuff leaving its imprint deep into the skin of his wrist, so that it would only just have faded by the following lunchtime. He'd found it difficult to drift off that night, still unspeakably annoyed at L, by the way he had shoved him against the wall earlier. It hadn't been sexual – rather, it had been a display of hostile frustration, a scare tactic to try and intimidate him, but Light felt more annoyed by that. Nobody pushed Kira around, physically or mentally, _especially_ not L.

But he slept now, oblivious to L, who was far from asleep. The jerking and jingling of the chain as L remained awake when he was sleeping didn't bother Light anymore.

He only awoke when L wanted him to, doggedly pulling back the edges of sleep, making the room appear in spliced flashes of dream and waking until the detective's persistent prodding separated them out.

"What?" he asked sleepily, raising his head from the pillow slightly to look up at the detective through the darkness of the room.

"I think you know what, Kira-kun."

"That again?" Light sighed dismissively at the name and settled back down onto his pillow. He closed his eyes, willing himself back into the skin of sleep that still clung to him, trying to shut down before L could start another debate.

"Yes, that again," L said bitterly, tugging the covers off just enough to prevent Light from sinking under. "And again and again and again, until you tell me what I want to hear."

Light ground his teeth for a second of resistance before opening his eyes; he could not ignore such a blatant threat. He glared through the shadows, trying to fix his eyes with L's. But even from a few feet away the darkness made it difficult; L's face had taken on a strange terrain, shadowy tracks removing all detail. His distinctive eyes which normally held the same attentive inquisitiveness of a blackbird were now just dark circular voids.

"What do you want to hear, L? I don't sing very well but I do know some Shakespeare soliloquies in perfect English."

"How humorous you are."

"It's nothing compared to how annoying _you_ are."

L didn't reply verbally to this, instead grabbing Light by his hair and lifting him from the pillow again, forcing him to sit up. Light twisted in his grip with a hiss of pain, smacking him away.

"Stop tossing me around like I'm some silly rag-doll or something!" he snapped, rubbing at his skull.

"Oh, Yagami-kun, shut _up_," L sighed. "I can't stand your whining."

"And I can't stand _you_!" Light bit out, fully fired up now. He was already irritated by the rude awakening and getting a bruise on his skull to match the bruise on his ego wasn't improving his mood.

"Oh, this is wonderful – this idle, old-married-couple banter of ours." L sat down on the bed and leaned towards Light, his expression dangerously blank. "Listen to me and listen well, Light Yagami – I am sick to death of this. Do you think I'm an idiot? Well, even if you do, you're wrong, because I know when I'm right, even if I don't have the evidence to prove it. You _are_ Kira, and if I hear you deny it one more time—"

"What, you think you can _threaten_ me into confessing that I'm Kira?" Light spat incredulously, not backing down from the violation of personal space. "Corrupt methods, L? I never would have thought it of you."

"It's more like Good Cop, Bad Cop, Yagami-kun… except that I'm not playing Good Cop anymore," L said, with such complete seriousness that Light couldn't help but give a harsh demeaning laugh.

"How dramatic. Tell me, which police TV show did you get this speech from?"

L gave a sigh and sat back, rocking contemplatively on the balls of his feet.

"Well," he reasoned, more to himself, "I might have known you'd be like this. You talk far too much, Yagami-kun – always having something to say for yourself, a defense, if you will. You are, overall, an extremely defensive person. It's almost mechanical. Very strange, even…"

"You've never heard of being quick-witted?" Light asked icily.

"It's not being quick-witted. It's ironic that you mentioned Shakespeare – that you know some of the soliloquies, I mean. You know them by heart, presumably because they have been learnt. Rehearsed, perhaps. That's how you often seem, Yagami-kun. Your clever defenses that always deflect my suspicion away from you… they are too clean, too perfect, they seem _rehearsed_ to me, as though you predicted my reaction. As though you set up the situation so that I would react in no other way but the one which you foresaw."

Only a chilling tingle along his spine acknowledged the truth in L's words; beyond that Light betrayed nothing. No matter how perfect L's assumptions might be, he would never be able to move them out of the realm of speculation.

"Ryuzaki, that's ridiculous."

"Ridiculous? Yes. Impossible? No." L smirked. "Likely? I'd say so."

"I'm. Not. _Kira_," Light hissed. "Even when you have proof—"

"I don't have any proof that you're not Kira."

"You don't have any proof that I _am_ Kira!"

"I know that you are."

"You don't know that – you just _think_ you do."

"Just the way," L agreed airily, "that Yagami-kun thinks he is going to get away with convincing me that he isn't Kira."

"That… that's not even the same—"

"Yagami-kun." L shot him an odd, twisted smile. "I hope you realize how much this useless cyclical reasoning amuses me. I have great respect for you – you are almost my equal. Your deductive ability is astounding, so much that you have helped the NPA on minor cases prior to this one. However… no matter your potential, you are not a detective. I, on the other hand, am all three of the world's top three-ranked detectives, and have been for several years. And yet _you_… you are arguing with me. You really have no respect for me at all, do you?"

"I…" Light faltered as L effectively pinpointed a weakness and exploited it, showing off the gap between them that Light often forgot existed. He clenched his fists and fired back: "That's because I know what you're like, and you… you're just a spoilt childish brat!"

"Ah, such hurtful words, but you forgot to add that I am a very _powerful_ spoilt childish brat." L leaned closer to Light again (who by this point was regarding him warily, his cinnamon eyes wide and guarded). "Here's how it works, Yagami-kun: This is my case. Nobody besides the task force really knows what is going on with regards to this investigation. The fact is that I could really just go back to the ICPO and present just about anybody I choose to them as Kira. I've earned that kind of status at this point, and that kind of unquestionable power." His oblivional eyes gleamed. "…My pointed being that if I truly wanted you executed, Light Yagami, it wouldn't be a problem for me."

"That's abuse of power!" Light hissed, unable to hide his horror and disgust at L's words.

The powerful nerve-racking _truth_ of those words.

"It is. However, I would argue that using the Death Note to kill criminals is also an abuse of power."

"That's got nothing to do with me."

"Still saying that?"

"…Even if I _were_ Kira and _were_ to confess," Light said in a hard voice, "you'd have me executed anyway, so how exactly do you expect to force a confession out of me by threatening to have me executed?"

"It's a crude method, I admit – but it would get the job done either way."

"A desperate, baseless method is more like it! Do you _know_ what my father would do to you if—"

"Ah, yes, your father. I would regret bringing that kind of pain upon him, of course. Yagami-san is a good man. But as for "what he would do to me"…" L smirked again. "I'm _L_, Yagami-kun. I can completely disappear if and when I choose to."

There was relative silence for a moment as they stared at the darkness in the other's face. The tension was so tightly strung that it could be heard humming lowly in the air between them.

"You're despicable," Light breathed.

L laughed. It was quiet but genuine; cold but nonetheless amused.

"Yes, we make quite a pair, don't we, Kira-kun?" he replied, rattling the handcuff locked around his own wrist.

"Stop calling me Kira!"

"No, I won't. No matter how many times you deny it, I simply won't believe you. The only thing which can save you now is that thirteen day rule, which I'm afraid I have my suspicions about." L finally leaned back. "I understand that this must be frustrating for you, Yagami-kun. I know the feeling – around and around and around in circles, never getting anywhere. Don't you think I'm _tired_ of accusing you of being Kira?"

"Stop doing it then!"

"But then I won't get the answer that I want to hear."

"You won't get it even if you _do_ keep asking," Light retorted.

L paused, apparently considering this.

"Very well," he said at length. "I won't ask again."

He slipped carefully off the bed and Light heard him rummaging around on the floor for a long moment. Eventually he resurfaced, his arms filled with various wires, plugs and cameras.

"Here," he said, and threw them all onto the bedsheets. "This is all the security equipment from this room and the two adjacent. Hidden cameras, bugs, sound feed, everything. I ripped it all down earlier. And look." L pulled off his shirt to completely bare his chest. "I'm not wearing any kind of wire or recording device."

"Put your shirt back on, you exhibitionist," Light spat icily, ignoring the cool tendrils of nervousness. This was something new, something dangerous; he could feel L's deceptive methods lapping at his mind. "If you think all this is going to magically make me confess, you are sadly mistaken, because I have nothing _to_ confess," he said, with just the perfect combination of indignation and sincere denial. He then lowered his head, glaring at L through his hair as he came back with his own accusations. "And even if I _did_ have some thing to confess, I still wouldn't, because I don't trust you, and just because you _say_ you've taken all the security stuff out, it doesn't mean you actually have."

L smiled wryly.

"That's true," he agreed mildly, pulling his top back on over his head. "But then… just because Yagami-kun _says_ that he is not Kira, it doesn't mean that he actually isn't." The detective blinked innocently at Light's irate expression, noticing the slight twitch in his left eyebrow. "What?" he went on. "Is that not an employment of identical logic?"

"You always twist my words against me, no matter what I say," Light said bitterly.

"That's true," L said, his voice pleasanter now that Light had acknowledged his skill at creating loopholes.

"You sound so proud of that."

"It's what I do best."

"This is pathetic, Ryuzaki." Light pulled the covers over his head to block out L's smug face. "I'm going back to sleep."

"No, you're not." L grabbed the sheets and wrenched them completely away from the teenager, tossing them to the floor.

"Ryuzaki—!" Light started indignantly.

"Yagami—No. _Light_-kun." L leaned close to him again, locking their gazes inescapably, in a way that sent a premonitory chill crawling down Light's spine, and which had nothing to do with the absence of the bedsheets. "This is the end. Dire straits." His voice was almost hypnotic. "I'm not going to put up with your lies and false-offence whenever I accuse you of being Kira anymore. I don't think you actually understand how much you insult me every time you deny your title – though I suppose you wouldn't particularly care either way, now would you?"

"Not really."

"I thought not." L gestured around the walls of the bedroom they'd shared for months. "This is an ultimatum, Light-kun. I won't ask you to confess again – I'm _telling_ you to. _Warning_ you to, even. I've taken out all the recording equipment. No matter what you say, I won't have it on record. I won't have any evidence to prove that you said it. This is really more about my sanity, because I really can't _stand_ to hear you deny being Kira again when I know how unashamedly you are lying."

"You're an idiot."

"And you're Kira."

"Ryuzaki." Light took a deep breath to calm himself down. "Listen to me: I am _not_ Kira. End of story."

L looked at him for a long moment, studying his face in silence as if trying to peel back the layers of skin and get inside Light's mind with just a penetrative gaze. After a poker-faced moment, L gave deep, woeful sigh, leaning forwards so that his forehead rested on Light's shoulder. He loosely wrapped his arms around the teen's shoulders and started to laugh. There was less humor in this one, and it unnerved Light greatly as L's shoulders quivered with mirthless noise, but he didn't dare push him away in case he'd actually gone completely mad and tried to throttle him or bite his eyes out or something equally insane…

Eventually L unwound himself from Light and sat back, smiling; Light was unnerved further still, finding his expression impossible to read or predict his next actions from.

"Well, I didn't think it would be that easy," he mused, and he got up off the bed and shuffled over to the wardrobe.

"Ryuzaki," Light started impatiently, "you can't still think… Wh… what are you _doing_?"

"Getting this," L replied absently, digging to the bottom of the wardrobe and pulling out the case Light had originally brought all his things from home to the taskforce HQ building in. "We can easily fit everything we need in here," he went on, bringing it to the bed and slamming it down on the mattress, making Light hastily fold up his legs.

Light's eyes narrowed as the cold suspicious feeling in his chest intensified.

"…Everything we need?" he repeated. "And again: _What_ are you doing?"

"I think you mean what are _we_ doing," L sighed, unzipping the case and flipping the lid back. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Oh, I don't know… You feel bad for constantly accusing me of being a mass serial killer and have decided just this moment to take me on vacation to Hawaii to make up for it?"

"Something like that," L muttered. "Get up please, Light-kun."

"…You're serious?" Light could barely contain his perplexity and shock at this sudden bizarre behavior from practical, logical L. "…We're _running away_?"

"You may call it that, if you wish."

Light stood up, shaking his head in bewilderment. He had been thrown for such a loop that it felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him, and he struggled profusely to form coherent sentences.

"What the hell is wrong with you? What…? I mean, why are you… suddenly doing this? It makes no—"

"Because," L interrupted, halfway through carefully and meticulously wrapping up his laptop wire, "as I said before, Light-kun…"

He glanced at Light, who was struck silent again, part-confused and part-frightened.

"…I don't think you want to die."

* * *

So, yes, no Disney princesses, but I think it's fair to say that we're off to a more dramatic start than _Poison Apple_, right?

You know, I would like to promise a new chapter soon, but I have Narroch for a co-writer, so… (She's getting senile in her old age…)

But we hope you like it so far, and indeed _come back_ for that next chapter!

Thankyou for reading the first chapter of _The Monster You Made_!

RobinRocks and Narroch xXx


	2. Chapter II

**Narroch: **Sorry about the wait! Life gets in the way sometimes... Anyway, thanks for coming back for Round 2!

**RR:** Actually, I'd be more inclined to say that it's _Narroch_ who gets in the way sometimes…

Heh heh heh.

But anyway, wow! This story has had SUCH a great response already! **54** reviews! Well, 53, when you discount Narroch snatching Spot #50… Regardless, I wasn't expecting it to be so popular – um, at least not this quickly, anyway… :)

**Narroch: **Yes, and thankyou to all our lovely reviewers who took the time to leave a comment! Awesome people like: **Bligy, HereIGoAgain, TheRoseByAnyOtherName, Kutsushita-Socks, JazzySatinDoll, bookenworum, larsa7, caedi, Death-to-the-tadpoleclowns, ayachan, Gullveig's Heart, xXxIchigoBeyondxXx, gyrfalcon122, Barranca, Layalas, sennyo-chan, NeoAddctee, The Sacred Pandapuff, Kaiji, Perdue, Deus3xMachina, ShannyKarma, Shakuhachi Jade, CuteCherryBlossom, Scripta Lexicona, GreenMoth, Shikirou, Brainsick, Holly Lawliet, shirosunday, narutoclaymorelove4eva, Star Jinin, -Red Angel-Blue Angel-, BlingBling021, Lawliet's Angel, Nearu, Synonymous Brian, tsuki aoi usagi, incandescentglow, Faerylark, A, Dale, Rogen-chan, Pseudo Hanyou, Sango-maru, Kazutaka-kun, Orcrists Mate, rappelezfille, Albinokatzchen, sayuri2023 **and **Vermillion Lies**!

Thankyou everyone! These reviews really motivate us, you have no idea!

**RR: **Yes, Thankyou all SO much! Seriously! Although… whilst all your reviews pretty much only had good things to say (you spoil us, you really do), we did notice that a lot of you are already comparing this to _Poison Apple_, with the differences between, for example, L's behaviour.

Please _please_ **PLEASE** get_ Poison Apple_ out of your heads! We're thrilled that you all (mostly) liked it, and we know that it was probably our plug at the end of _Grimmer Than Grimm_ that brought _The Monster You Made_ to your attention, but… These stories are in NO way similar. Well, at least, they aren't supposed to be. In a lot of ways, _The Monster You Made_ is actually a kind of ANTI-_Poison Apple_.

So, yeah… It's not a complaint. We're not annoyed. But we don't want anyone to be disappointed when this fic doesn't turn out to be another _Poison Apple_.

Though it _does_ have LxLight-ness. Much, much LxLight-ness.

:D

The Monster You Made – II

L had obviously been prepared for their abrupt departure – for once his intent was fully-revealed, things happened very quickly.

The handle of the suitcase was pressed into Light's free hand and L had started walking for the door, confident that the chain would force Light to follow and his own sense of propriety would ensure he did not abandon the luggage. The detective completely ignored him as he spluttered angrily down the hall after him; a silent tug on the chain was his only reply when Light did not move fast enough. The rapidity of it all was part of the plan as well, because it gave Light no time to think or argue, did not allow him to gain his bearings enough to back-pedal and latch onto a doorway and hold on until the others arrived.

He could only trail behind L and demand explanations that were met with silence; being ignored lit a fire in his gut that sent up heated signals of rage, but he continued to move forward nonetheless. And, after a few password locked doors, just like that, they were gone; whisked out into the night by Watari, who had already been waiting for them in the idling car.

But once the darkness veiling their escape was lifted and the rest of the task force began to filter in, their absence was noticed almost immediately. Removing L from his headquarters had the same effect as removing the center of gravity from a solar system, with all the planets and smaller players immediately veering off course into a widening gyre of panic that was completely beyond their control.

* * *

"They're gone, aren't they?" Aizawa sighed it as he flopped tiredly into a chair. "Completely, utterly gone…"

"I don't get it," Matsuda said, shaking his head as he continued to pace grooves into the floor. "Why would they just… vanish like that?"

Aizawa shrugged, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"No idea. But they're gone. We've checked every room, every closet, every camera… Light and L aren't here anymore."

They both looked up as the doors slid back and Mogi entered the room.

"Anything?" Aizawa muttered gloomily, already expecting the answer.

Mogi shook his head.

"No. Watari seemed as surprised as us. We checked all the security footage, but after they went into the bedroom late last night, there was nothing. It's as though… they just completely disappeared into thin air."

"Without even a ransom note to say goodbye…" Aizawa added bitterly as he massaged his temples.

Matsuda exhaled tiredly, finally giving up and wilting down into a chair next to Aizawa.

"Wow, Misa-Misa is not going to be pleased," he murmured, clasping and unclasping his hands, not knowing what to do with them.

Aizawa snorted.

"Never mind Amane," he said in a low voice, glancing again at Mogi. "How's the chief?"

Mogi arched an eyebrow.

"Not good."

Aizawa sighed again, sadly shaking his head.

"That's what I thought… It's to be expected. After all, his son _did_ just completely vanish with the world's greatest detective – who, by the by, still suspects him of being Kira. Now whether L actually had anything to do with it or not…" He gave a little shiver. "It doesn't matter. But I know if it was my daughter…"

He trailed off, but Mogi gave a nod of understanding. Matsuda, on the other hand, was studying his shoe laces.

"I think we're all thinking the same thing, regardless," he said, not raising his head.

"And what's that, Matsuda?" Aizawa asked tartly, as though riled at the thought of being considered to be on the same mental wavelength as the younger detective.

Matsuda averted his gaze to him, and without the apologetic tone that usually coloured his voice, said, "…That they probably ran off together."

* * *

"You can't honestly think we're going to get away with this," Light bit out sulkily from where he was sprawled on the hotel room bed. "The task force is probably going ballistic right now trying to find us, and what if the world police gets involved in the search?"

"I have already accounted for all possible scenarios," L responded lazily. "It will be impossible for the task force to track us, and you already know why the world authorities won't step in. I'm L – technically I don't exist, and you can't send out a search party for someone who doesn't exist."

"Well, I _do_ exist! And that's beside the point. More importantly, what about this investigation? It will crumble without your leadership, and you know it!"

"As far as I'm concerned, this case is already solved – at least superficially." L rattled the chain to solidify his insinuation.

Light could feel the tight control on his anger slip slightly as he gripped a handful of blanket and squeezed until his knuckles shook white. He had to take a deep breath through clenched teeth before replying in clipped words;

"If you think removing me from the naysayers will make me succumb to your hypothesis, you're dead wrong. You _aren't_ going to be able to get away with this, Ryuzaki."

L ignored him, curled up on the floor setting up his laptop.

"Ryuzaki!" Light snapped finally, sitting up. "Don't ignore me again!"

"Light-kun, you are simply voicing your opinion – yet again – that we will surely be caught before long," L said boredly. "I value your opinion, as you know – but I have heard it before, so please be quiet."

"You just don't want to hear me say it because you know I'm right," Light said icily.

"You are welcome to think that, if it pleases you," L replied politely, shrugging.

Light gave a frustrated sigh and flopped back onto the bed on his back.

"You're impossible to reason with," he muttered.

"You knew that already, Kira-kun."

"Stop calling me that!"

"Make me."

And as Light seethed in silence, L finally looked over his shoulder at him.

"Of course," he murmured, "there is one way to do _exactly_ that, isn't there?"

"You can't bait me like that, _L_," Light said stiffly, grinding his teeth in irritation.

L looked back at his computer screen with a small, staged sigh.

"A pity."

"This is ridiculous," Light said, sitting up again. "We can't just… disappear—"

"Of course I can. I'm L."

"But _I_ can't!" Light burst out.

"If you're with me, you can."

"Well, maybe I don't _want_ to! What about my education, my family, my—?"

"You jeopardized all those things a long time ago, Light-kun – and the fact that you grow concerned about losing them when faced with the threat of it only accentuates your arrogance. Did you think that you could be a murderer and continue to have a normal life?" L paused, glancing quickly at Light again. "I find that quite unbelievable of you."

"I am not—!"

"Oh, give it a rest, Light-kun," L sighed, interrupting him for the third time. "Really, I expected you to be a little more grateful than this."

"Grateful?!" Light spat. "For this?! I'm still your prisoner!" He rattled the handcuff chain as he said it.

"Well, you have only yourself to blame."

Light gave a frustrated growl but could not muster up any other argument that would not be harpooned by L's childish, illogical stubbornness. He needed to get out, needed to breathe, have a second to himself even if it was only a fleeting illusion of privacy. If he didn't, he felt he might break from L's wounded rhetoric and move the fight into the physical realm. He didn't want to sport a bruised swollen face for the next few days, so instead he tugged at the chain again to get L's attention.

"What _now_, Light-kun?" L asked wearily.

"I want to have a shower," Light replied sulkily. "So I'm afraid you're just going to have to move."

L turned to stare at him again, as if sorting out his latent intentions for such a mundane request.

"If you keep to a single condition, I will let you out of the handcuff," L replied absently, no longer looking at him as the computer screen reabsorbed his penetrative gaze.

Light immediately perked up at this offer, but was wary regardless:

"What _kind_ of condition?" he asked suspiciously.

"That you both undress and leave your clothes out here."

Light's amber eyes narrowed.

"And would that be because you're concerned that I, in your crazed little mind perhaps being Kira, might have some tiny scrap of Death Note concealed somewhere in my clothing and might try to kill you in the bathroom by writing down your name which, by the way, I don't know?" he bit out. "Or is simply because you're a pervert and want to watch me undress?"

"Neither," L replied mildly. "It's so you can't escape out of the window and run away. You won't get very far with no clothes on. Not that I would recommend such a course of action anyway – we _are_ fourteen floors up."

"Then why—?"

"That is my only offer," L said calmly, producing the glinting key from his jeans pocket.

Light hesitated – then snatched the key and jammed it into the lock, freeing his wrist of the metal band.

"Clothes now, Light-kun," L reminded him coolly as he watched him savour the feeling of not having the handcuff pressed coldly against his skin.

Light shot him a sour look, but undressed quickly and unceremoniously and vanished into the bathroom like a bolt of lightning, slamming the door behind him and locking it loudly.

His obtuseness did not offend L; he'd long gotten used to his behaviour. The boy was vain, revelling in his appearance, and regarding L with bewilderment, as though he thought him barely human, because he did not. And although L admitted that Light did in fact have more _to _revel about in that department, it still wore him out – the _work_ that could be done in the time that it took Light to primp himself for the day…

He heard the sound of the water running and knew it was safe to leave his laptop; he rose and went wearily to the bed, where he lay on it the way Light had been only minutes before.

Stretched out like this, it wasn't easy for him to think – he was too used to that other position, the one which Light criticized him for.

Not that it mattered. He didn't need to think right now. Only reflect; grip the two sides of a mental hourglass and watch the unceasing flow. Regardless of where they went, neither one could halt the accumulation of evidence.

The inevitable death that was at the end of it all.

He lay his arm across his eyes and gave a cold little sigh. Light was right – this was stupid.

Probably the stupidest thing he'd ever done.

* * *

"_You promised that you wouldn't question this," L reminded him as he shut the car door._

"_You made me give my word on that on unfair grounds," Watari replied icily from behind the steering wheel. "You asked me to promise not to question this before you gave me any inkling of what it was that you were doing."_

"_Still, a promise is a promise." L smiled at the older man. "And I appreciate it."_

_Watari did not return his smile, and did not even try to hide the worry etched across his features._

"_I'm afraid I cannot see this ending well, Ryuzaki."_

"_I'll take good care of Light, Watari."_

"_That's not what I…" Watari frowned. "I'm more concerned about __**you**__."_

"_I'll be alright too. I'm not a child anymore, you know."_

"_An adult is just as likely to be murdered as a child."_

"_Thankyou for the statistic," L said coolly, "but I can handle him."_

"_Ryu… L." Watari looked up at him from the driving seat of the car, his expression almost helpless. "Why are you doing this – and now? You could be throwing away—"_

"_I'm perfectly aware of what I stand to lose. Do you really think I haven't thought this through?"_

"_I'm afraid it seems rather that way."_

_L only smirked._

"_I daresay."_

"…_I can't change your mind, can I?"_

"_Watari, you've known me since I was a little boy. You know perfectly well that you can't change my mind."_

_L fell silent as Light appeared next to him, having finally gotten out of the car, trailing the suitcase after him._

"_You could have at least helped, you jerk," Light muttered blackly._

"_Shut up, Light-kun," L replied pleasantly; he looked again at Watari. "And your other promise, Watari. You mustn't tell anyone, not even the other task force members, about where we are. Act as though our disappearance is complete news to you too. I don't want you to be blamed for my actions."_

"_You know I would never betray you, L," Watari replied blandly, starting up the car again. "Well, I'll leave you here, then…" He made no move to put the car in drive, seemingly lost for words. "This was the hotel you wanted. And remember, if you need anything—" _

"_I'll contact you, Watari – don't worry about it."_

_Watari, still with a slight grimace, finally gave a silent nod and slowly pulled out of the drop-off area. _

"_I really hope my father doesn't torture him to get some answers out of him tomorrow," Light said dryly, watching the car disappear._

"_Shut up, Light-kun," L said coldly in reply._

* * *

**Narroch: **Heh heh heh... Oh L, what _are_ you up to? I don't think he even knows. XD

**RR: **Honestly… I don't think even _I_ know anymore… :(

**Narroch: **Next chapter is longer, we promise!

**RR: **Yeah, it… it really is. This was my bad – this chapter is _tiny_. It was even shorter before Narroch got at it, but… eh, I don't know why it's so little. It's not like I cut anything out – it does everything I wanted it to, it's just…

Short.

But Chapter III has been drafted, and it _is_ much longer than this one, we can promise!

In other (quasi-related) news… There are two brand new _Poison Apple_ videos on YouTube, by **TheXLastXPiece** and **Kurosukai71**! Links are on my profile under the list of _Poison Apple_ AMV links – you should check them out! They are both very cool and excellently-made! Thanks, guys!

:)

Okay, so… that's that! Thankyou for reading! Hope to see you again soon for Chapter III!

RobinRocks and Narroch

xXx


	3. Chapter III

**Narroch: **Happy Birthday, Light! Your twisted morals make our world a better place.

**RR: **Indeed! Today, 28th February, is Light's birthday. He would be… 23, I think. According to the manga, anyway. So we updated today, because we're cool like that.

Ironically, here in Britain, Film4 is showing the first _Death Note_ movie tonight at 10:55pm. It's probably just a coincidence, but… weird, huh? O.o It'll probably be the dub, but… if you're in Britain and reading this before 10:55pm on Saturday 28th February, 2009, and have Film4, what are you waiting for?! Celebrate Light's birthday… um, not in style, but in a lame fangirly way!

**Narroch: **And once again, huge thanks to everyone who reviewed! Lovely folks like: **HereIGoAgain, ?, jesus-of-suburbia2o2o, Neko-chwan, Tamouri, Shakuhachi Jade, Kurosukai, bookenworum, Winnie-chan, larsa7, MattTheGamer, Synonymous Brian, Shikirou, Weirdest, Shii Sora, Black-Dranzer-1119, hanakisa, blondevil, Vermillion Lies, Holly Lawliet, M.S DARK ANGEL, Scripta Lexicona, Nightwing Gurl, -Red Angel-Blue Angel-, heitone, Sanzo4ever, Faerylark, Pseudo Hanyou, Nearu **and **zeppelin13**!

We love you all… Please enjoy!

:)

The Monster You Made – III

His behaviour was odd.

Well. Odd_er_.

It was all Light could think, standing beneath the showerhead; his fingers moved through his wet hair slowly, shifting the layers to rinse all of the soap out – but finally, frustrated (with L as opposed to his hair) he pushed it all back away from his face and leaned back against the glass of the cubicle, tilting his face upwards to let the hot water rain down on him. With his amber eyes shut against the barrage, he found that the soft sluice of water over his temples lifted and rinsed away the thoughts beneath them; the isolation and the warmth cleared his head a little.

Not that he needed it to be clear, particularly. This situation wasn't complicated. There was nothing to puzzle out, really.

It was just that L was behaving even more oddly than usual – and that was that.

Or, at least, that was as far as his conjectures allowed him to go with the sparse details surrounding the strange turn of events. It was a comforting thought that L was simply acting out one of his more fanciful whims, even if it wasn't necessarily the entire reason as to why they had been uprooted.

Light couldn't even _begin_ to fathom why, and could get no further in theorising a plausible motive to satisfactorily explain why L had done what he had. There was no gain in saving Light, not for him, surely? After all, it wasn't as though he thought that he wasn't Kira, thought he was protecting an innocent, accused suspect – entirely the opposite. He was the single strongest antagonist to Light's proven innocence. And his behaviour towards him was no less aggressive, no less threatening. He'd said that he was doing it because he was sure that Light himself didn't want to die, and while it was true, Light couldn't see why that was any concern of L's.

He was, after all, the one with the power to have him put to death. He was the one who had already promised Kira's head to the world, and now he was hesitating on the delivery of that vow.

And even when he put all that aside… it left him at _this_.

The fact that he was showering in a hotel room summed it up.

They were _displaced_.

L couldn't possibly think they could just… _run away_ from the Kira case, did he? It simply wasn't an option, just like putting a stop to the case altogether (although the former was easier to do, which, Light considered, was why L had opted for it). Things didn't just go away if you hid from them – which L obviously _knew_, because if things _did_ go away if you ignored them, there'd have been no reason for him to start trying to catch Kira in the first place.

So what exactly did L think he was _doing_?

Was it some new form of interrogation? Taking Light out of the element he had grown comfortable in to try and startle a confession in the new, unstable milieu?

Light knocked off the shower, shook his head to get the excess water out of his hair and stepped out of the cubicle, wrapping one of the thick white hotel towels around himself. Even clutched around his shoulders, it fell almost to his knees, and he stood in the accumulated heat beneath the soft cotton for a while to keep the cold air away from his wet skin.

He stood and stalled, leaning against the bathroom wall, the white porcelain damp with condensation against his forehead. He stood so long that he dried almost naturally, and was still slow in rubbing his hair before letting the towel drop again, this time to his waist, and wrapping it neatly around his hips.

He didn't want to go back out there. It wasn't that he was embarrassed about getting dressed in front of L – he wasn't a shy person, but even if he had been, he was so used to being in the detective's presence that it would certainly have been trained out of him by now.

No, he didn't care about that. L never paid much attention to him, anyway – not when he was swanning around matching his shirt collar with his socks or picking a belt that was highlighted perfectly against the grain and shade of his jeans (designer, fitted, often a simple boot cut, but sometimes skinny, depending on his mood) or fixing his hair so that it swept perfectly across his forehead.

(If L ever did pay attention to him during these times, it was to snort in irritation or visibly consult the watch he wasn't wearing. Light didn't care – he wasn't about to adjust his routine and let his appearance to go Hell for someone who spent the entire day looking like he'd just gotten out of bed after sleeping in his clothes; which, incidentally, was an impressive feat for L, since he rarely did either.)

So he didn't give a damn about that. It was just…

Well. He rubbed at his wrist. The imprint of the handcuff was still there – soothed away a little by the hot water of the shower, but still visible. It was _this_. This was the first time in months there had been more than six feet between himself and the older man. It was a compromising deal but, in the end, he'd gotten used to it. Being with L all the time hadn't really bothered him anymore. They'd gotten used to one another's habits and quirks and had eventually adjusted to fit each other into their shared life, aligned their unique shapes until they fit together in an unconscious dance of accommodation.

But now, suddenly free of that jangling, that coldness, that constant little restrictive tug, reminding him that, really, he was still a prisoner… He felt suddenly overwhelmingly appreciative of _not_ being attached to someone via a six foot chain and the physical and mental tension it represented. Once the fetters had been removed, and he was given just a taste of the freedom he had been forced to sacrifice, he could see all over again, with wide-eyed clarity, the litany of injustices the chain brought into his life.

And he was not, incidentally, eager to return to such a state of affairs after his awareness of the unfairness had been reawakened.

But he'd been in bathroom for a while – maybe half an hour, at this point. L was probably going to start banging on the door in a minute, demanding to know what was taking him so long. Perhaps raising the meaningless percentages in his absence, though, Light realized, there was no point in him doing that since L was already one hundred per cent convinced of his guilt. The bouncing percentages had just been used to keep the task-force happy.

So he paused only a while longer, still running his fingertips in soft circles over his free wrist, and looked at himself in the mirror, suspended above the marble sink of the spacious bathroom. The mirror was square, at present sporting a border of opaque steam, but even from this distance, he could see himself reflected in it perfectly.

Perfectly.

He wondered what _L_ saw when he looked at him – because L didn't look at him the same way everyone else did. L's expression, and his large black eyes, were hard to read, harder to decipher than anyone else's that Light had ever met, but even though he could never be sure quite what he was thinking (although he could often guess by methodically matching the detective's thought stream with his own, and when his deliberations proved correct, when he was able to finish L's sentence for him, it was like a blowjob for his nervous system – more pleasurable to be in L's mind than any physical pleasure he could draw out from his auxiliary parts), he could see a difference in the way L regarded him:

It was a mixture of admiration, fascination and disgust.

L was a detective. The World's Greatest, they said. So he'd seen criminals before – hundreds, thousands, even. He'd seen thieves and conmen; gang leaders, murderers and rapists. Did L think them all to be the same? Did they all share similar characteristics and backgrounds?

Personally, Light considered himself almost as well-versed in criminals – he had, after all, made it his mission to hunt them down and punish them according to his belief that the world could only get better for it. So when he thought about it himself, he considered that yes, a lot of these criminals – these monsters of human beings – were the same.

They were _all_ the same.

He saw it in them. The gleams of evil peeking out from the guilty white of their eyes; from the photographs and footage he used to punish them, he read in them all the same thing, and he interpreted it as weakness. It was true that humans were inclined to do evil, because if that wasn't the case, there would be no evil, and thus no need for Kira. But he mused, as Kira (because there _was_ a need for him), that evil was caused by weakness; often greed, but not always.

Because Light considered also that humans were inclined to do good, and to do good was, by the definition of the human condition, more desirable – which made evil, therefore, a failure to do good.

Failure was inability. And inability was weakness.

Light saw no weakness within himself. No failure to do good, to _act_. And in the end, no matter what those who opposed Kira thought of his regime, he was sure that they neither could argue that he was weak – that he was like those whom he punished.

He was sure that _L_ didn't think Kira was weak, regardless of how much he despised his techniques.

So he wondered then what L, who thought (and thought correctly) that he was Kira, saw when he looked at him. If he, like Light, saw only weakness in those who failed to do good and thus could only do evil, then was that why he looked at Light the way he did?

Was he looking for the sign of another failure that he knew himself he would never find?

Because Light Yagami didn't look like a murderer.

(And he didn't look like a monster, either.)

He gave a sigh. He didn't want to go back out there to have L remind him that he was yet still his prisoner, but he'd stalled long enough, he supposed. Still with the towel around his waist, since L had insisted he leave his clothing on the other side of the bathroom door, he slid the lock back and sauntered into the adjacent bedroom; he straightened his shoulders the way he always did when he was in L's presence, perhaps to accentuate the detective's own Hell-in-a-handbasket posture, and injected something of a sway into his hips, the way he always did to make L glance at him sourly.

His little exhibition went entirely to waste – L hadn't looked up to acknowledge his grand entrance.

In fact… Light paused in the middle of the bedroom, looking at the bed, upon which L was sprawled with what seemed like every single one of his bony angles askew so that he looked like a wooden doll cast aside by a child in boredom. His hair didn't help, either, like a chicken-scratch scrawl on the sheets and across his forehead – it was glossy and raven, but Light could see the tangles in it even from where he stood in the room.

L really didn't look after himself properly. No wonder he perpetually looked like he was at Death's Door.

Regardless of whether that was actually true or not.

He was oblivious of Light's icy gaze running over him, however, because he had his eyes closed. Light wondered if he was asleep – he _had_ seen him sleep before, after all, but it was always at odd times, and usually in short bursts, almost always less than an hour at a time. Light didn't know how he could function with such an erratic and infrequent sleeping pattern, but it was only his appearance that seemed to suffer for it – his mind, on the contrary, seemed to function just fine with the few meagre hours of unconsciousness he allowed himself.

But he was sleeping now – or, at least, appeared to be. Light came closer to the bed, his bare feet silent on the hotel carpet, and stood at the edge of it. It was thoroughly tempting to wake him up by jabbing him or pulling him off the mattress (he knew, incidentally, that were the roles reversed, that was exactly what _L_ would do to _him_), but something kept him merely watching in silence.

He absently touched his own wrist again as his eyes fell on L's, the silver band still locked around it, and the chain coiled, gleaming, on the sheets next to him, with the other handcuff open and empty, waiting to cage _him_ again.

…He'd been wondering all this time, hadn't he, what exactly L thought he was doing – taking Light, throwing everything away and just running blindly; he'd been wondering _how_, and _why_, and…

But maybe this wasn't the question after all. Maybe this… was the answer. And maybe the _question_ was…

_What the hell did you think you were doing right from the start, L?_

Maybe L had always known that he was Kira, simply playing the foolish dance of quantitative numbers and qualitative observations to entertain himself, or appease the task-force – regardless, he certainly knew now, whether Light was willing to admit it or not. And so did that make him idiotic or simply mad, to have _chained himself_ to Kira?

Maybe both, and maybe he was only realizing that now – now that he had run out of options on all sides.

Maybe this was less about saving _Light_ from death and more about saving himself.

A desperate bid to cover up the novice mistake of underestimating Light's wiles and overestimating his own technique to crack them.

But even knowing that, and knowing L as well as he did, Light could still not regard him any way but warily. And looking at him now, the way he lay, the way he slept; studying him, taking note, as he had many times before, of how slender he was, how delicate his build was considering his age, and how vulnerable he was in this state, how he could do nothing to stop Light from bypassing the Death Note entirely and instead picking up a pillow and suffocating him with it, or taking L's own chain, panting in homicidal excitement as he wrapped it around his pale neck and pressed down until the freak stopped kicking…

Light Yagami knew better than anyone that looks could be deceiving – and L might lack Light's beauty, but he certainly didn't look like a monster either.

_And yet you're the most dangerous fucking thing I've ever come across…_

Light wanted to touch him. He didn't know where, and he didn't know how; he didn't know whether he wanted to wrap his hands around his throat and feel the intimate loss of life through his own grip, or take his hand and intertwine their fingers and feel the curious delicacy of his touch try and puzzle him out through those same fingers, those which had pressed pen to Death Note hundreds and hundreds of times over—

Staining L with the bloody ink that invisibly coated his hand, letting his actions rub off on him through simple touch alone…

Perhaps L finally sensed his predatory presence looming over him, for his dark eyes finally flickered open, looking straight up at Light, and somehow more startlingly black than they usually seemed, as if he hadn't been asleep at all.

"Nice nap?" Light fired off, somehow out of self-defense.

"Yes," L replied lazily. "Nice shower?"

"Yes."

"Good," L sighed. "At least we know it works." He waved his hand at Light in a somewhat-feeble manner. "Go and get dressed, please, Light-kun – it's uncomfortable having you lean over me wearing so little."

Light gave an incredulous snort, surprised that L would even bother to bring that particular subject up.

"You _wish_," he bit out acidly, once again feeling more like he was on the defensive rather than the powerful predator he had imagined only moments earlier. Stepping away from the bed, he went to retrieve his clothes, needing their concealing comfort.

"I wish what, Light-kun?" L asked flatly, his smooth casual tone set like concrete as he rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow, the side of his face resting on his palm.

Light didn't reply, but glared at the detective for a long moment; L met his gaze, shrugging nonchalantly with his expression rather than his shoulders.

"You _know_ what I mean," Light said coldly at length, dropping his towel as he said it – perhaps to accentuate it.

"How do you know what I know?"

"Well, you seem to _know_ that I'm Kira."

"Oh, do you agree with that statement now?" L's expression and tone hadn't changed remotely, but Light was well-versed in reading behind L's words by now. "I seem to distinctly recall you arguing that I merely _thought_ that you were Kira – not that I _knew_."

"Stop twisting my words!" Light spat. "You know that's not what I meant!"

"Again, you make assumptions about what I know, Light-kun." L smirked. "Incidentally, I _do_ know that you're now not wearing anything at all."

As if to verify, the lasers L had for eyes dipped away from Light's face to purposely antagonize his nakedness. Light instinctively turned, shrinking beneath the stare and lashing out verbally instead:

"That's not knowing – you can _see_ I'm not wearing anything! And _incidentally_, if you weren't such a pervert—"

"Oh, now, that's hardly fair, Light-kun. You have absolutely no grounds on which to call me a pervert when you're making such a show of yourself." The detective tilted his head, retuning his gaze to the younger man's face. "And I _was_ here first."

Light's reply to that was to pull on his boxer shorts with a great amount of ceremony, huffing impertinently at L when he was done and twisting around to show L a literal cold shoulder.

L only sighed in response.

"I think Light-kun should have been the one to have a quick nap," he said blandly. "He is very cranky, even after that very long shower."

"And what's _that_ supposed to mean?" Light bit out, pulling on his jeans.

"Whatever you want it to mean, I suppose. I wasn't _implying_ anything, if that's what _you_ mean."

"Good." Light sat heavily on the edge of the bed, his back to L, and pulled on his shirt, sweater and socks.

"Of course," L went on when Light didn't reply further than that single word, "it _was_ a _very_ long shower…"

"Will you stop it?!" Light snapped, turning towards him. "Jeez, you're acting like a horny teenager, turning everything I say into a double-enténderé!"

"As opposed to Light-kun, who _is_ a horny teenager, but instead acts like an elderly man?"

"Oh, shut up. No wonder you don't have any friends."

"I thought Light-kun _was_ my friend." L spoke with a purposely hurt tone, laying it on thick; but whether for his own sick amusement, or merely a sorry attempt at guilt-tripping, Light could not tell.

"I'm not going to be your friend if you speak to me like that!"

"How curious – Light-kun remains my friend when I accuse him of being a murderer, but threatens to end our friendship when I accuse him of being a horny teenager who acts like an elderly man."

Light gave a snort of disgust, ready to wash his hands of the entire strange and combative conversation.

"You're so weird, Ryuzaki," he muttered blackly, teasing at his damp hair.

"Perhaps, but you're the one with odd reasons for falling out with people."

"And _you're_ the one who accuses people of jerking off in the shower just because they like to wash their hair properly!" Light burst out incredulously. He just couldn't seem to let it go – the innocently-veiled comment had stuck its gummy fingers in his brain and was not letting any thought past without first touching it with the embarrassing context.

"I never said that," L replied; which was true, but the devious little smirk on his face told Light that he'd fallen right into his trap and given him the result he'd wanted.

"You're ridiculous," Light seethed, resisting the urge to slap him right in his smug face with great difficulty, and instead changing the subject very obviously. "Do we have a hairdryer in here?"

"I expect so – but I can't say I bothered to check."

"Don't you think that's an important thing to check for?"

L gave a little laugh, as though he presumed Light to be joking.

"Of course not," he replied casually. "A hairdryer is hardly one of my top priorities, Light-kun."

"Yes," Light agreed snidely, "I can see that."

"I'm sure you can."

"Your hair is probably beyond rescue, anyway."

"I'm heartbroken."

"Why don't you care about the way you look?" Light asked, more out of curiosity than because he really cared why L seemed to think that half-heartedly raking his fingers through his dishevelled halo of black spikes was equivalent to combing it.

"No-one else does," L replied with a shrug.

"Yes, they do."

"I meant no-one else cares about the way _I_ look, Light-kun."

Light blinked, slightly surprised by the self-depreciating comment.

"That's what _I_ meant, too."

"Misa-san doesn't count."

"Well, maybe _I_ care," Light snapped, growing more and more irritated.

"Why is that? Surely I simply make _you_ look even better by comparison."

"Because _I'm_ the one who has to look at you twenty-four-seven!"

"Light-kun," L replied mildly, "that's hardly accurate. You sleep—"

"Okay, you know what?!" Light interrupted, heading him off mostly because he was sick of listening to him talk. "It's because… you're actually… well, if you put in some effort, you'd probably be not bad-looking."

This reply seemed to knock L back for a moment, for he actually took a touch longer than usual to formulate a response:

"That's a more outlandish reason than I was expecting, I confess," he said flatly.

"The fact that you call it "outlandish" just proves that you've probably never even looked at yourself in a mirror properly," Light huffed, irritated by both L's rebuke of his quasi-compliment and the fact that he'd somehow been tricked into quasi-complimenting him in the first place. "Seriously, if you brushed your hair, maybe got it cut a bit, got some more sleep so that you didn't look like Death and dressed properly—"

"I'd hardly dressed _im_properly, Light-kun."

Light arched an eyebrow at him.

"You do realise that you look about a decade younger than you are, don't you?"

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"Sure, if you _want_ to look like a sulky fifteen year old who religiously wears the same battered outfit due to their worship ritual of some flash-in-the-pan emo band."

"I don't look _fifteen_, Light-kun," L pressed sincerely, though his amusement at the turn of the conversation was now apparent.

"Well," Light went on, ignoring his protest and the gleam of enjoyment in his eyes, "even that outfit you're wearing could be bettered, if the jeans were fitted and the shirt wasn't about four sizes bigger than you are. I mean, seriously – do you _like_ that outfit?"

"It's convenient."

"It's awful."

"Yes, to someone like you, it probably is."

"Don't you get bored of it? Why don't you ever get a different color of shirt? Why don't you get a different wash of denim? Why don't you get a button-down or a T-shirt or a polo-neck or something?"

L was smiling openly by this point.

"Does my wardrobe-choice really distract you that much, Light-kun?"

"It's… frustrating," Light replied. "Girls would probably flock around you, you know, if you—"

"I have better things to do with my time than attract girls. Incidentally, so do _you_."

"Why don't you borrow something of mine?" Light went on, dedicated to his cause by now, mostly because L was so against it.

"I don't think so. We aren't the same size, to begin with."

"What difference does that make?" Light barbed in reply. "I bet that shirt you're wearing right now is too big for me."

But L only smirked at him.

"Probably. And I thank you for your generous offer of making me look more presentable, but the fact is, Light-kun… that I don't want to be changed by you, so I suggest you give up."

_Before I get start to get very annoyed_, was the unspoken half that statement, an etcetera that rose up and promised a real battle if Light attempted any further changes to L's identity.

But Light couldn't back down to him now. It wasn't even really about getting L to change his "uniform" or pry a brush through his hair for the first time in probably about six years – it was just another of their little power battles, these ones fought with subtle words always far bloodier and more brutal than those settled with kicks and punches. A complicated dance that built upon itself, each word a new brick teetering upwards until either one of them came along with a sledgehammer comment and declared victory by knocking the whole thing down so it could be begin all over again. An endless cycle. One said yes, the other said no, and from there they simply pushed.

"What's the matter?" Light hissed, leaning closer to the detective. "Afraid that when I'm done with you, you'll look in the mirror and won't recognise yourself?"

"Perhaps," L responded, not backing away despite Light's extreme proximity. "Yes, maybe that _is_ what I'm afraid of. That… would make me too much like you, wouldn't it?"

"And why is that?"

"Well, don't _you_ feel that way when you look at yourself, Light-kun? Like you can't see yourself anymore? After all… you weren't always a murderer."

Light's coffee eyes widened a little; and L smirked, his ebony eyes gleaming, and he came closer still and tilted his head a little to the side—

Light jerked away from him in almost a reflex reaction, shocked in part by his words and in part by his actions.

Had he been about to…?

"No?" L asked, still smirking.

"I…" Light's voice failed him, and instead he shrank back away from L, off the bed, and stood up. "Wh-where's… the hairdryer?"

L flopped back to the mattress, stretching like a cat, and then gave a sigh, sounding almost contented.

"Try the dresser," he replied languidly, and he rolled over to present Light with his back. "Oh, and when you're done, put the handcuff back on."

He said nothing else; and neither did Light. The teenager simply stood there, gazing wordlessly at L's slender back, watching the gentle rhythm of his breathing manipulate his body.

From here, as always, he didn't look dangerous. He never did.

(And he didn't look like a monster, either.)

* * *

"So… what do we do now?"

Aizawa looked from Matsuda to Mogi as he said it. The three of them sat around the coffee table of the investigation office, although what they drank was a good deal stronger than coffee. The tongue–numbing sake seemed appropriate, seemed to act as a conduit for conversation that had long since ceased after it became obvious that there were no more ideas to be drawn out. It was late, but due to the frustrating nature of the day, the three of them remained in the headquarters, as though they felt that only between the familiar walls where one of the greatest minds in the world spent his time deliberating could they make sense of why the top detective and top suspect in the case had disappeared. As if, with the help of pure white spirits, they could pull some of L's residual genius from the walls.

"Matsuda may have a point," Mogi said, ignoring Aizawa's question not out of spite, but because of the awful unknown surrounding it. It felt safer to gnaw over stale ideas than try to generate new ones; hesitation was necessary when their future was on the cards.

"_I_ think they left together," Matsuda agreed flatly. "I don't think L kidnapped him, and I don't think there was a third party involved, since there was no evidence of a forced entry, or forced exit for that matter—"

"Are we back to that again?" Aizawa bit out. "That isn't what I asked! I asked about… _this_!"

He took a sizeable swig, knocking back some of the clear liquid with practiced finesse as Mogi watched him silently.

"You mean the investigation," Matsuda muttered, loosening his tie as the heat in his belly slowly filtered into his veins.

"That's precisely what I mean." Aizawa put his drink down again with more force than necessary, so that a little of it slopped over the side and onto his hand. "Whether they left together by choice or not, it still leaves us… well, here, without any leads, without any evidence, without _L_, for godsakes…!" He gave an angry little sigh. "You both know that I'm not a very big fan of L – I really only came _back_ because… Well, because I want to catch Kira, and the only way I can do that is by being on this task-force, because the NPA pretty much handed it over to L. And I want to help catch Kira so badly that I was willing to swallow my pride and bow to L for the sake of hoping that if I was humble enough, he'd let me back onto the task-force—"

"Which he did," Matsuda pointed out.

"Yeah – right before he vanished into the night with the chief's son!" Aizawa snapped, brandishing an accusing finger in Matsuda's face. "My point being, at any rate, that I might not _like_ L much, but I still think we need him for this case!"

Matsuda gave a groan, massaging his forehead.

"I don't know what to make of it," he said. "That notebook pretty much proved that Light and Misa are innocent, and yet L takes off with Light—?"

"That's what's worrying the chief," Mogi interrupted quietly. "The person Light disappeared with is the only person who thinks there's still a chance that he's Kira."

It had been one of the main concerns that continued to marinate in their collective mind. Would L truly attempt to enforce his own justice after it was clear no one agreed with his prediction? Would he be sly enough to spirit Light away as the detective, judge and executioner wrapped up all in one?

He had been known to do more drastic things in the past.

"Hasn't he heard anything from Light at all?" Matsuda asked, sitting up straighter.

Mogi shook his head, solemnly appraising the wavering bottom of his drink.

"No – and he can't have. Light's phone was still upstairs when we checked the room this morning. There's no way of contacting him and vice versa."

"What about L?"

"He left his phone too, but his laptop was gone."

"So, then… can't Watari—?"

"You'd think so," Aizawa cut in dryly, "but then, I expect that if L doesn't want to be found, even Watari wouldn't be able to get hold of him."

"What I don't understand," Matsuda put in, "is that if L took Light away because he still thinks that he could be Kira and is perhaps… I don't know, trying to find a way to accumulate evidence against him again, maybe using the Death Note, then why didn't he take Misa too? He always said that if they were guilty, they were equally guilty – as in, they were both Kiras."

"I don't know, Matsuda," Aizawa replied wearily. "But I don't like this – I don't like it at all."

"Neither does the chief."

"I can understand that. He must be worried sick." Aizawa lifted the bottle again and swilled it thoughtfully around the glass before pouring himself another serving. "…They took the Death Note with them, right?"

Mogi nodded.

"We assume so – it's nowhere to be found."

"So what about the Shinigami?" Matsuda put in. "Does that mean she went with them too? She's attached to the notebook, right?"

"I thought that," Aizawa replied, "but she's still here. I saw her floating around upstairs earlier."

"Doesn't she know anything?"

Aizawa gave a snort.

"If she does, she's not saying anything. Still, we already knew that she wasn't exactly forthcoming with information…"

"…So where do we go from here?" Mogi asked morosely after a long moment of silence that bounced between the three of them. There was no point in parading the cynical facts they already knew, that had already been mulled over by each man as if the truth would be visible if they simply rearranged the variables and ignored the missing pieces.

"That's what I want to know," Aizawa replied bitterly. "Do we keep investigating Kira? Do we redirect our efforts and try to find L and Light? I just… I don't know."

"What does the chief say?"

"Nothing. He hasn't said anything. Not that… I mean, we're grown men – we can make our own decisions, but… even so. This is like being thrown all the way back to Square One, after everything we've accomplished…"

Matsuda and Mogi both gave a nod in response to this sentiment, and the three of them occupied themselves with their drinks because the only other thing to occupy themselves with was the fact that the building in which they sat was now absent of the entire reason for its existence.

"You know," Aizawa said after a long, terse moment, "if I was him, I wouldn't come back at all."

"L?" Mogi asked.

"Mm."

"Why's that?" Matsuda inquired.

"Because I'll fucking knock him into the middle of next week if he does."

Mogi gave another silent nod and Matsuda raised his glass in a toast to Aizawa's words.

The door suddenly slid back behind them; Matsuda sprang to his feet.

"Ryuzaki? Light?!"

"I'm afraid not." Watari presented themselves before them with his usual understated grace. "Do you mind if I join you?"

"Not at all." Aizawa gestured to the empty seat next to Matsuda as the younger detective sank back into his own. "I don't suppose you bring any good news with you?"

"Again, I'm afraid not." Watari sat next to Matsuda and accepted the glass Mogi had poured for him. "I haven't heard from Ryuzaki at all."

"Do _you_ have any idea where they went? Or _why_?" Matsuda asked bluntly.

Watari shook his head.

"No," he responded. "Please don't be under the impression that Ryuzaki tells me everything. He most certainly doesn't."

"Matsuda didn't mean that, I'm sure," Mogi answered, heading Matsuda off. "But we thought… that if anyone had heard anything, it would be you."

"That is an understandable theory, but I'm afraid I don't know anything."

"Huh." Aizawa arched an eyebrow briefly. "I guess Ryuzaki didn't want us blaming or interrogating you, if he took off without even telling _you_."

Watari gave a wordless nod of perceived agreement, ignoring the veiled warning.

"I hope they're okay, anyway," Matsuda murmured, more into his drink than to the others.

"I'm sure they are," Watari said expressionlessly.

"Just guessing isn't enough for Light's father," Aizawa bit out. "I'm surprised that it's enough for _you_. Maybe I only say this because I'm a father myself, but… he's like your child, isn't he? Ryuzaki?"

"You could say that," Watari said quietly, lifting the dish to sip at the burning liquid as means of ending the vague statement.

The fact that Watari had suddenly displayed a want for sociability apparently didn't mean he wanted to talk about L; the three of them noted this in the way his reply was so closed, in his downturned gaze and regret so visible that it seemed to deepen the wrinkles of his face. Well, who knew? Maybe he was angry with L – his "child", as it were.

But where Aizawa and Mogi would push no further, Matsuda boldly stepped:

"How long have you known him, Watari?" he asked (maybe his inhibitions about asking such a personal question were dulled a little due to the alcohol that made the world hum in his ears, or maybe not).

Watari paused, as though debating answering.

"A long time," he answered finally. "He… he was six. Frighteningly clever for his age. I admit… that I wasn't entirely sure I exactly liked him to begin with, even back then." Watari's gaze fell idly upon Aizawa. "Isn't that a sin? Disliking a little boy? He wasn't impolite or boisterous – entirely the opposite, in fact. But he unsettled me. It took me a while… to understand him. And perhaps, even now… I still don't understand him completely."

Aizawa looked levelly right back at Watari.

"That's not an excuse," he responded coolly.

Watari gave a slow nod that stopped in the lowest dip, left his head hanging as he spoke towards the floor.

"I know. All I'm saying is that even though I've known him for almost twenty years, I don't know why he did this. And that's the truth."

"But that said… does this surprise you?" Mogi asked quietly.

"No." Watari sipped at his drink. "It doesn't. And I wish that that _wasn't_ the truth."

Silence settled its imperceptible veil around them again, although now it seemed less awkward – perhaps for Watari's calmer, if not wiser, presence.

"You know," Aizawa said a at length, something of a bitterly-amused laugh in his voice, "maybe this is just typical."

"Huh?" Matsuda glanced up. "Of Ryuzaki?"

"No, no. Us. Well, I think it must just be a human thing…"

"I don't follow, Aizawa," Mogi said.

"_This_. Whenever we have a problem…" Aizawa smiled blackly at his reflection, wavering in the pure clear strength of his drink, "we gather together and expect the solution to be at the bottom of a glass."

Watari shrugged.

"Better than running," he replied softly.

* * *

"How dare he… How _dare_ he! He'd better not think I'm putting up with this," Misa Amane whispered to her reflection, her teeth on edge as she aggressively pulled her hairbrush through her straight gold locks.

"Misa, aren't there still cameras in this room?" Rem responded, watching her from across the room.

"_I don't care_!" Misa yelled, whirling on the Shinigami and throwing her brush down onto the carpet with such force that it bounced a few times. The subject of her love was not something she ever pondered upon lightly, and once the fact that he had been taken from her was noted upon the minutes of her mind, she had been leaving a heat warped trail of anger in her wake the entire day. "This has nothing to with Kira, or the Death Note, or anything! This is about _me_!"

Rem, with her statuesque calmness, viewed the outburst with the same detached concern she always did.

"Even so… Misa, I know you're angry, but you have to consider that perhaps Light agreed to this—"

"Why would he agree to it?!" Misa shrieked; she gave an angry sigh and began to take out her earrings. "After they caught Higuchi, Light and I were proven innocent! There is _no reason_ for Ryuzaki to just take Light and disappear with him!"

"Perhaps not that you know about, Misa."

"Well, I don't care!" Misa snapped again, tossing her earrings down on the dresser, followed closely by her choker and rosary beads as the tiny bubbles of anger simmered in her veins. "I can't be patient with this anymore, Rem. All I want is to be with Light, and just when it seemed like we were going to be free…"

She didn't finish, her words dissolving again into fury; instead she turned her back on Rem again, roughly undressing to get ready for bed. Her anger was visibly present in her actions – the aggressive way she pulled at her flouncy, fancy clothes and kicked them away across the floor when they were off.

Instead she stood before the mirror in her nightdress – plain white, with a little frill around the hem – and glared at her reflection.

"After I was willing to be friends with that horrible freak, too…" she murmured, the fists at her side clenched spasmodically. "He knows how much I love Light. How could I not, after he punished my parents' murderer…?"

The volatile anger easily gathered behind her eyes and converted to tears that began to swell and tremble on the edge of falling, but she fiercely wiped them away on the heel of her hand.

"Nobody steals my boyfriend," she hissed viciously; and then she slammed her fists against the mirror, hard enough to make it shake in its frame, and pressed her forehead against it. Staring into her own red rimmed eyes, hardened by the determined jealousy she felt, the nervous love that overwhelmed her, she murmured lowly against the glass, "Nobody takes away my Light…"

"I can go back up to the Shinigami world and find him for you," Rem muttered, drifting a little closer. Her concern was evident though awkward, as if the rule against saving humans extended to commiserating with them as well and the Shinigami didn't know how to properly respond to the sympathy she shouldn't feel.

"No," Misa replied, lifting her head again, long used to the strange point blank offers of help. "Thankyou, Rem, but I don't need you to do that. I found Light myself the first time. I can do it again."

"But you don't have the Shinigami Eyes to help you this time—"

"I don't need them." Misa turned to the Shinigami, her pretty smiled stitched back onto her tear-streaked face. "Ryuzaki may have stolen Light away from me, but I can steal him right back. After all, they say all is fair in love and war, don't they?"

"And this is love?"

"No," Misa replied innocently, her eyes lit with a luminous puerile anticipation; the jealous eyes of a child whose toy had been taken away. "…This is _war_."

* * *

**Narroch:** Whoo! Go Misa! Go get your bitch back! Ah... She tries so hard... :)

**RR: **Well, yeah… It sucks that L stole her boyfriend. Literally.

O.o

**Narroch:** So, what did you all think of this chapter? Please let us know! Tell us the truth, we can handle it! We love all kinds of comments.

**RR: **Yes, and thankyou for all your reviews! We're glad that most (all?) of you seem to like it so far!

**Narroch: **I guess that's a wrap. Thanks for reading, and hopefully we will see you all again in the next chapter.

**RR: **And happy birthday to Light! Even if he has to spend it trapped in a hotel room with L…

:)

RobinRocks and Narroch xXx


	4. Chapter IV

**Narroch: **Yikes, has it really been over a month since our last update?! :o Sorry! It's mostly been my fault since I have been traveling.

**RR: **_Mostly_? It was _entirely_ your fault, dear.

(It really _was_ her fault, you know. Not that that's anything new…)

My gosh, guys – the _reviews_! Only three chapters has already taken us well over triple digits! Even _Poison Apple_ didn't have such a fantastic initial response! Thankyou all so much – we're very glad you like _The Monster You Made_! I know you shouldn't measure the merit of a story by the review count – because, as we all know, some really good stories have hardly any reviews and some truly godawful ones have way more than they deserve (though I should hope that neither _PA_ nor _TMYM_ quite fall into the latter category…) – but nonetheless, your overwhelming response makes us very happy indeed. Thankyou!

:)

(It's actually kind of interesting, since, so far, most of this fic has been L and Light in a bedroom throwing verbal abuse at one another…)

**Narroch: **I'm curious… Did anyone pull off any epic pranks on April Fools day? Or is saran-wrapping the toilet just too immature for you guys? (cause I totally did that XD)

A special shout-out and thankyou to the following reviewers! We love getting feedback, so thanks a lot for all the help guys! Here's to you: **Gabi Howard, ravensbff, Jungle John, Pseudo Hanyou, Inikus, Holly Lawliet, Kutsushita-Socks, Sanzo4ever, heitone, merichuel, Shii Sora, Lawliet's Angel, Star Jinin, zoningout, Synonymous Brian, jesus-of-suburbia2o2o, -Red Angel-Blue Angel-, TheRoseByAnyOtherName, Lady Psychic, BriFMAluver, incandescentglow, Faerylark, NX-Loveless-XN, HereIGoAgain, bookenworum, MattTheGamer, zeppelin13, elibellyboy, Albinokatzchen, Scripta Lexicona, larsa7, Dragonist, Neko-chwan, Layalas, rain angst, Shooboosha, Little Ryuu, Shakuhachi Jade, Black-Dranzer-1119, ?, Deus3xMachina, JazzySatinDoll, MythsAndDreams, shinobi of the sound, Tamouri, Guardian of Courage, sugargrazed, 4udball, Perdue, Bluegrass Elf, Seidene Asche** and** Plate Captain!**

We both hope that you enjoy chapter four! Guess what… It's got a lot of L in it.

The Monster You Made – IV

L wasn't much of a laborer.

Sure, he could stay awake for an entire week, solve complex problems that would make think-tanks' heads spin, pull clues to unsolvable cases seemingly from thin air and had a nearly suicidal work ethic. But beyond his abstract mental gymnastics, he was a sedentary creature to the extreme. He could grow roots in his chair from how little he moved by choice; and when _forced_ to get up, irritated that his deliberations had to be interrupted by such base corporal activity, his stance reflected his disdain, slouched and sloppy since he couldn't be bothered with the effort of good posture.

Though he held the title of "World's Greatest" in one aspect of his life, it did not bleed over to all parts; for certain, he was not the world's most incredible workman. He was the kind of person to buy things, not make them. Anything that didn't involve solving cases, or adding more knowledge to his extensive mental library, was better acquired through the convenience of his copious resources. This gave him more time to focus on the more important aspects of life; for example, forcing an evil notebook-wielding murderer to confess.

And so, for all his inhuman intelligence, L didn't have a clue how to drive a nail through a plank of wood; he had never once even gripped a hammer. He'd never really seen anyone do it; had never been inclined towards that area of practical knowledge. While growing up in the orphanage, Watari hadn't required anything beyond the mental realm, so L had never felt the personal satisfaction of a child sitting in a treehouse created by his own hands. He'd never climbed the fence that he helped erect – holding a bucket of nails, carrying the other end of heavy rough boards. He'd never come into the house after a long, hot summer's day – sticky and stinking, globs of house paint splattered about his face and hair, splinters pricking his fingers. The sense of ownership, the proud ache of hard work, the joy of pulling a solid form out of a jumble of parts, the intimate act of creating; he had experienced none of it (and he was rather certain that the crumbly sugar cube towers he assembled didn't really count).

But, despite his obvious lack of craftsmanship know-how and the absence of the skills and drive required to carry out any form of construction, L had managed to build a wall. And not just _any_ wall – it was a huge, ominous, looming barricade of bitter gray bricks and concrete, meant to impress, intimidate. The wall was so long he could not even visualize the end of it, let alone see its edge with his own dark eyes; it so high that it broke through the clouds, punctured the stratosphere and divided the stars. Its surface was smooth – almost slippery – and barbed wire spiraled out at its base like gothic frills on a masochist's skirt.

Starting as a little child, he had built it up by himself, with no prompting from Watari. In his training – _grooming_,Watari had called it – he had been exposed to the atrocities of mankind at a young age (perhaps too young); and though Watari was certain the child's astounding intellect would allow him to sift through the blood and separate out the patterns without losing himself in it, L was still deeply affected by what he learned. The vast cruelty humans were capable of, eons of death and suffering, and he was expected to fight it by himself with nothing more than his bare hands and quick wit. It had frightened him, and his compassion had been overwhelmed; he did not have enough to go around, humanity's collective hurt was far too deep for him to touch without feeling it.

So, instead, he began to lay bricks. Stone by stone, year by year, he retreated into himself until he had became half a person, far more mechanical and efficient without vulnerable emotions pinned to his sleeve. Impenetrable, icy and flat: Wearing a mask of the same mortar that held together the fortification in his heart – only the most horrific crimes and the highest body count would lure him into action. Behind the huge gray barricade (gray because the subtle, equal mixture of black and white was too dead to be a color – only an indecisive tone), he tucked all the articles that could pry his attention away from his objective. Pity was not an option; and to administer pity upon himself was even worse.

Inside could overcome him.

So the real L, the World's Greatest, the gothic letter on a screen, made certain the wall still remained, even if it sometimes made it unbearably lonely for his empathetic half. The wall. The wall that he had built. So he'd be protected. So nothing could hurt him. The wall that ensured his steadfast success with unfeeling efficiency.

(Did it really have to be so high?)

* * *

"Why does Kira kill?"

L directed the seemingly-random question at no-one in particular, stating it towards the ceiling in a half-murmur. But, since Light was the only other person in the room, and because L never did anything by chance, the statement snapped his attention to the detective immediately. Though the question swung heavily towards the rhetorical, and was a rather obvious trap, Light couldn't stop his brain as it churned out several explanations in response, a few of them constituting the fact that L was a particularly _annoying_ bastard the world would be better off without. He remained silent though, feigning disinterest, and returned his attention to the television screen and the bland news report it displayed.

"I wouldn't know."

He could feel L's gaze fall on him, a prickling weight crawling across his scalp and down his spine, but continued to ignore it, focusing on the grainy images. They both knew he was Kira, and it was only his simple insistence to the contrary that was keeping him from the hangman's noose. He had already been victim to L's temper tantrum at his continued denial—

But anything else meant death.

They both knew _that_ as well, so L let the contradiction slide, didn't jump on Light for lying so blatantly.

"Perhaps, if I tried to see the world through Kira's eyes, do you think it would lead me to understand his methods any better? We know the what, when, where, how, and who—"

"Ryuzaki!" Light interrupted with a disapproving frown.

"We _suspect _who," L seamlessly corrected, though it was obvious from the roll in his eyes that the amendment was more sarcastic than sincere; "but the final missing piece is the _why_."

He tilted his head, finally looking Light in the eyes.

"I have my own theories, but without Kira's input, we will never have a complete picture of this case."

"Well, guess away, if that will entertain you. But don't expect me to help with altering your mindset to match Kira's, because I'm not him," Light grumbled, annoyed by the very idea of the conversation. L was just going to take Kira's ideals, _his _ideals, analyze and dissect every one and then rub them in his face to try and get a reaction.

L gave a calculated shrug.

"Though, regardless of my current suspicion, you yourself once admitted to having a similar train of thought as Kira."

Light masked the internal grimace and merely juggled a shrug in return. Of _course_ L would bring that up; his time spent carrying only half his memories, when he had nothing to rely on but intuition, and spouted self-accusing things all the time…

"Do as you wish," he conceded grudgingly.

L tilted his head with the ghost of a smirk before settling deeper into his seat.

"As horrifying as these events are, if you disregard the rather supernatural method of murder, mass killings of this kind are certainly not very peculiar to the present era. Kira is not the first ruthless conqueror of the world, and I severely doubt he will be the last."

"So you're saying that Kira's appearance was inevitable?" Light asked, begrudgingly intrigued by the admission.

"I wouldn't go that far, but his actions do follow the pattern of our species," L said, leaning forward to grip his knees, fixing Light with a conversational look once he fully gained the man's attention. It was strange; Light had expected him to be much more combative. L began again, voice low and smooth, flowing unhindered like a calm river.

"Many years ago, a friend showed me a very thin book – only 10 or 15 pages long – that purported to be a capsule history of the world. It was a chronological list of all the important events in recorded history. Can you guess how it read?" L paused, looking at Light for an answer, but continued on before he could give one. "Of course – it was one war after another, interrupted every now and then by a few nonviolent events, such as the birth of Jesus and the invention of the printing press." L bowed his head, absently wriggling his toes as the statement sunk in. "What kind of species are we if the most important events in the brief history of humankind are situations in which people kill one another en masse? Moreover, to display such a chilling acceptance of violence that at times seems utterly absurd and mindless… On a broader scale, we humans have shown ourselves to be a particularly aggressive species. No other vertebrate so consistently and wantonly kill and torture members of their own kind."

L murmured it all down towards the floor, as if completely uninterested by what he was saying; but Light nodded in mute agreement, aware that he was being led along but too fascinated to disengage him. L plodded on, still seemingly unaffected by what he was saying:

"Scientists, philosophers, and other serious thinkers are not in complete agreement about whether this homicidal aggression is an inborn, instinctive phenomenon or whether such behavior must be learned. Evolutionary psychologists underscore the point that nearly all organisms have also evolved strong inhibitory mechanisms that enable them to suppress aggression when it is in their best interests to do so. Violence is an optional strategy and it is far from inevitable; in fact, it can be virtually eliminated within a culture. So it is a gross oversimplification to imply that humans are pre-programmed to behave aggressively, that criminals and their crimes are a given in any society."

"But that is why Kira kills selectively."

"Culling the herd, so to speak?" L smiled as he said it, and Light realized his mistake too late; he was slipping into L's pace. Of _course_ L wanted him to defend Kira's methods. Light could feel his irritation beginning to blossom, promising him that the conversation was not going to end well if he was this agitated this early.

"Yes, I suppose that is an accurate depiction of his actions," L went on, his voice bland, bored. "Though he has no way of knowing who deserves to die, whether _anyone_ deserves to die. He is after all, just one person." L looked up and pinned Light with his eyes, silently replacing the 'he' with 'you'.

"No matter how intelligent he is, he is not omnipotent. He can't make any judgment without the bias of his own personal history interfering."

"If that's your argument, then you could apply that to any judicial system in place. The judge and jury are not impartial deciding factors either."

"Yes, but in those systems there is complete transparency. Anyone can appeal, and everyone can see exactly how the judgment is passed. It reduces those biases until only the law, the law that everyone has agreed on, is the one thing that remains for sentencing. Kira has no such checks and balances, striking from the shadows and warping the process with his own twisted morals."

L paused again, waiting for Light's reply but, after a few awkward seconds, it became obvious that he wasn't biting. However, L was undaunted, filling in Kira's answers for him when he refused to speak.

"Certainly, Kira has done some horrific things," the detective continued dutifully, "but if you look at society now, you can't deny the stunning drop in crime rate. Before the Death Note came to Earth, I looked about and saw a world full of international, interracial, and intertribal hatred and disgust, of senseless slaughter, of terrorism, of diseases being manufactured as weapons, of enough nuclear warheads floating around to destroy the world's population many times over… It is no wonder Kira feels justified in his quest."

"Then why are you trying to stop him? If he is fighting against all those evils—"

"Just because I can understand _why_ doesn't mean it is the correct viewpoint," L interrupted coldly. "Kira is effective, but his method bears too much collateral, causes more damage than it resolves."

Light wanted to push, wanted L to define his vague umbrella term _collateral_. He was certain it would amount to nothing more than petty hurt feelings, or a different brand of morality flavoring his argument; nothing substantial, nothing that could possibly topple the mountain of data that supported the reduced crime rate of his regime. But he was already flirting with the fine line between innocent Socratic inquiry and dangerous Kira-rhetorical questioning; it wasn't a good idea to overstep it.

L seemed to read his thought because a smirk saddled his face, riding high and mighty as Light's glowering resentment trotted grumbling below.

"Yes, Light-kun, I _can_ understand the sensuous appeal that Kira's ability exudes, why people would clamber around his cause. In a complex and apathetic society like ours, extreme aggressive behavior may be the most dramatic way for an oppressed minority to attract the attention of the powerful majority. No-one can deny that, over the years, the effects of riots served to alert a large number of decent but apathetic people to the plight of ethnic and racial minorities. No one can doubt that bloodshed has led to increased attempts at reforms in all levels of society," L sighed, the first sign of any discomfort he had shown yet, though it more likely stemmed from boredom rather than any true distress due to the grisly subject matter.

"So you're _defending_ Kira's methods?" Light asked, more than a little incredulous.

"No, I am simply ironing out your creased facts. There _is_ a place for murder in humanity, but are such outcomes worth the dreadful price in human lives? I cannot answer that question, and neither can Kira," L continued, his voice pacing around Light, even though he himself stayed still. "But what I _can_ say is that violence almost never ends simply with a rectification of the conditions that brought it about. Killing someone who murders won't stop future murders. Violence breeds violence, not only in the simple sense of the victim striking back against his or her enemy, but also in the infinitely more complex and insidious sense of the attackers seeking to justify their violence by exaggerating the evil they see in their enemies and thereby increasing the probability that they will attack again, and again, and again…"

Light was tense, though he tried his best to not let it show, pushing the rigidity down, forcing himself to relax even though his fight-or-flight mentality was prodding him to do something (but, with L, retreat was never an option, so it was really more of a 'I'm-going-to-beat-the-snot-out-of-this-bastard' instinct he had to resist). At the very least he wanted to argue, to dispute Kira and society and the true nature of humans, on an even setting. But with his own supposed lack of involvement with Kira containing his words and actions to the tip-toeing of eggshells, he couldn't respond in the way he wanted to.

In the way _L _wanted him too, no doubt. If he took up L's invitation to a debate, it would be a long and, probably, highly-satisfying conversation – but with an execution tacked on at the end of it.

Light couldn't defend Kira without admitting he _was_ Kira; and the verbal immobility was driving him mad.

His stony silence urged L on.

"Victim-blaming. It is a form of dissonance reduction, distancing the victim from his humanity. It makes it easier to hurt, to _kill_ them. Kira has mastered this technique; along with dehumanizing the criminals he murders, he is also completely removed from the act. His conscious is left intact, and he remains ever surer of himself and the "good" he is doing, since all he encounters is the slow decline in criminals forced under through fear. He keeps his hands clean, literally and morally. But that's a huge problem in of itself; Kira is physically absent. There is nothing left for the victims of his judgments, the loved ones of criminals, the falsely accused, the innocent people killed just because they were in the way… There is nothing for _them_ to retaliate against. The injustice is internalized and Kira's rampage killings become just the pathological tip of an enormous iceberg: the poisonous social atmosphere pervading all levels of the world. It is suppressed now, out of fear of judgment, but eventually it is going to burst out somewhere. Humanity's tolerance is hydraulic and when it finally breaks… _Even_ Kira won't be able to do anything in the face of that explosion."

It sounded like a threat, like condescension, but also, somehow… a warning? Light stared as L went on; he wasn't sure when it had happened, but their gazes had become magnetized, and Light didn't know what would happen if he tried to pry away.

"Kira ignores this because he sees what he wants, and nothing else," L said, his voice almost hypnotic. "But the more he suppresses and kills, the more he adds to the pressure cooker the situation has become. We must search for alternative solutions; a less aggressive form of instrumental behavior to redress social ills without producing an irreconcilable cycle of conflict."

And _that _sounded like an invitation, not to Light, but directly to Kira. To give up his Death Note, help L change the world through more mundane means, perhaps even avoid the electrical chair he had been promised…

"L, I don't understand… Are you—?"

L cut him off, his manner clipped and unapologetic:

"Violence cannot be turned on and off like a faucet, Light-kun. People only need an example, a leader, and their rage will come streaming out."

* * *

(Light listened to L type – as he had for months and months.

It was an everyday sound, a rhythmic but mundane melody, and one he had come to associate with L, like it was his own personal brand of Bach or Beethoven; but now, in the aftermath of that conversation, in which L had served hardball after hardball straight at him, he listened and felt as though L's icy hand had sunk through the flesh of his back and taken hold of his spine.

He sat on the bed, the TV still on but quiet; quiet enough, anyway, and he looked across the hotel room towards the window, observing the clouds that dragged themselves across the dull sky like dying soldiers in No Man's Land and listening to L as he conducted his flat, colorless symphony.

He was trapped. It was more apparent, more real, than ever before. After all, the chain at his wrist might be a physical restriction, binding him to L, but somehow it had always remained symbolic too, purely metaphoric of L's clutches around him.

Clutches Light had always deemed himself capable of – eventually – breaking free from.

But now… He saw. This was the end of the line – the last stop on the track. He was here at what might as well have been the very End of the Earth, alone with L, and _only_ L.

He still didn't know what L's motives for upping and leaving with him were; whether L had been trying to save himself or save Light or had really just been sick of it all…

But he knew that he wasn't safe. Whatever L's reasons for this, Light Yagami wasn't safe with him. L seemed intent on making that much clear. At the same time he was trying to trick him into letting his guard down, he was also warning him that he should keep it up at all times.

Because L wasn't his friend. It was all pretending, all make-believe, all a game.

And the game had become Russian Roulette, and neither of them knew where the bullet was hidden—

Oh, Light had _thought_ he'd known all along, being the one to load the gun and begin the bet; but L was smiling as he handed him the gun, and he found that he didn't know after all.

He was afraid, and L fucking well knew it.)

* * *

"Are you ready, Misa?"

Misa glanced upwards, regarding Mogi in the tall mirror she'd been examining her reflection in.

"Just a second," she replied, taking out her lipstick.

Mogi, still her faux-manager, nodded and left the room, going back next door. Misa watched him go, uncapping her lipstick as she did so. She ran another layer of ruby over her lips, inspecting it as she put the makeup away again. She was usually meticulous about how she looked, but today it was especially important.

Her outfit was entirely black, as though she was in mourning – a flouncy little Gothic dress with puffy sleeves and lace and black velvet ribbon décor, opaque black thigh-high stockings with silky black bows, chunky metal-studded, high-heeled ankle boots and black lace fingerless gloves ending just over her wrists. The choker around her pale throat was black velvet too, with an ornate Gothic-styled cross decorated with black and crimson glass jewels hanging from it, cold against her collarbone – it matched her earrings and the pearl-beaded rosary she'd chosen with utmost care, to correlate with both her outfit and her makeup. She'd pulled her blonde hair into full bunches, tied with flowing black ribbon, and to crown her outfit completely, she wore a tiny black top hat, clipped into her hair as a decoration, embellished with black silk roses and a little loop of similarly-ebony netting.

She was sure that what she was going to say would be more well-remembered than her outfit – but still, it was in Misa Amane to make a perfect impression. To appeal to her audience's eyes as well as their hearts.

Mogi leaned back in and she turned to him with a nod.

"Okay, I'm ready," she said, and she went to the door; he held it open for her as she stepped past him, out into the small adjacent room; straight into a sea of flashing lights and questions.

She was used to it, though. She kept her cool. She smiled, posed for the flurry of flashes, and then went to the small table Mogi had had set up for her, sitting down and adjusting the frothy layers of her skirt so that it gave the perfect effect; made her look like she was daintily perched on a pillowy cloud of black lace. Mogi came and stood next to her, his expression as stoic as always.

He, too, had no idea as to why she had demanded a press conference, but in his usual deferential manner, he had not questioned it. He wasn't suited for the competitive gaudy world of celebrities and he didn't have it in him to be a true handler. He was just _too nice._

"Miss Amane!" cried the pushiest of the journalists, holding out his recording device towards her. "What's the reason for this?"

"What are you going to announce?" asked another, trying to elbow him out of the way.

"A movie?"

"A record deal?!"

Misa smiled calmly. They were such animals in these situations – dog eat dog, truly. She could use their ruthlessness to her advantage; indeed, that was her plan.

She knew that L thought her an idiot, but he had no idea what he was up against.

Not now, when she had nothing left to lose.

Misa stood up, placing her hands on the table and leaning over it, demanding authority with the definitive body language.

"It's more important than any of those things," she replied.

But then she paused, glancing again at Mogi. He might stop her – he was, after all, a detective on the Kira taskforce, and only posing as her manager. She couldn't afford to have him ruin her plan. She turned to him with her sweetest smile.

"Actually, before I begin… Mochi, I'm very thirsty. Can you please go and get me a latte?"

"Oh… I… Of course, Miss Amane." Mogi seemed perplexed by this request, since she did not normally ask him to run errands for her; but he nodded and began to leave, blindly taking the bait. He really was too nice…

"Miss Amane!" The journalists were beginning to get antsy, still pushing at one another in an effort to be the closest to her. "Don't leave us in such suspense!"

"Of course," Misa replied, satisfied as she watched Mogi leave the room, the door swinging closed behind him. "Everyone, what I have to say… involves _Kira_."

The hush that fell throughout the room like an implosion delighted her; if she hadn't had power over them before, she certainly did now.

"Kira? What about Kira?"

"You know who Kira is?"

"You met Kira?"

"You _are_ Kira?"

Misa gave a grim smile. Okay, now that she had their attention, she was going to have to be careful. It wasn't herself or Light she wanted to land in trouble here – it was L. After all, she had no idea where Light was. If she gave away his identity, there was no guarantee whatsoever that he would be safe.

But she knew that thousands of people supported Kira, even if they were not vocal in polite society about it. It was not an option for her to be able to find Light herself this time – but if she was not alone, if there was an anonymous army that would help her search for Kira, help her save him from L…

She understood that a lot of Kira's supporters would be normal, everyday people – they, the voiceless masses, were exactly the kind of people Kira appealed to, after all. So she also understood that most of those whose sympathy she might stir would probably be unable to help her. But she was willing to gamble nonetheless on the fact that there _had_ to be people higher up, people who had the means of finding L, who would also want to have their savior released.

"I am not Kira," Misa said firmly, "nor have I, regretfully, ever met him. I do not know his identity. But I am a supporter of his cause. Several years ago, a burglar killed my parents. The trial went on for months and there was speculation that he would even escape a jail sentence. It seemed like nobody cared that justice hadn't been served to my parents' murderer – as if nobody cared about the pain I felt, knowing that he might not be punished for what he did. But then Kira judged him for his crime, and since that day I have been dedicated to Kira's regime. He is an ally to the weak – to people like me, who have suffered in silence because of the evil deeds of other people."

Silence again – her words had cast a spell over them. She glanced at the door. Of course, Mogi wouldn't be back so soon from getting a latte, but she knew he wasn't stupid. It was possible that he hadn't ever left and was listening outside.

But there was no movement at all.

"So I am not ashamed to ally myself with Kira," she went on; tossing her head a little to make her bunches swing and give exactly the right dramatic effect. "He helped me as no-one else did – or could have. And as Kira helped me, I now wish to help him. As I understand it, Kira has at this point been taken captive in an unorthodox fashion by L. That is, L has imprisoned Kira without the NPA or ICPO's knowledge and simply disappeared with him. To me, this is unacceptable, and I am sure I am not the only one who thinks so. To Kira's supporters, and even those who are against us and wish to see him caught, we can all agree that L cannot be allowed to behave in this way. So I, Misa Amane, am standing against him, because I believe that he is wrong."

There was still silence as she finished speaking again. She wasn't surprised. She was completely certain that this was absolutely the opposite of what they'd been expecting her to say. But for all their speechlessness, she knew that they were each internally processing the best way to make headline news out of this. She wasn't the most famous icon in all of Japan, but she was popular enough, having been in a few small movies, on the covers of various fashion magazines and, most recently, Yotsuba Group's spokesperson – she was more than enough of a celebrity for something like _this_ to be big news.

And perhaps it had been reckless. She didn't care. She was still seething at the nerve of L – and reasoned that this was merely paying him back in kind. After all, he was flaunting his power as L, the world's greatest detective, to get his own way.

So she was going to use _her_ power as Misa Amane, famous model and actress, to get hers.

_He_ had provoked her. This was his own fault.

She thought it best to leave them hanging for now; she was sure they were on the verge of bombarding her with questions again. She gave a polite little bow and walked away towards the door.

"Miss Amane!" the first journalist called after her, breaking the spell she had cast over them all. "Wh-what's the meaning of this?!"

"Isn't it true that you were questioned about having connections with Kira prior to your being hired as spokesgirl by Yotsuba Group?"

"Would you like to meet Kira?"

"Have you considered becoming a public figure to front Kira's regime?"

"Miss Amane!" A young female journalist with glasses shoved her way to the front, almost catching Misa up. "How is it that you know about Kira's being captured by L?"

"The press conference is over," Misa replied coolly, looking over her shoulder at her. "I'm not answering anymore questions at the moment."

She flounced out of the room, very pleased with herself; she could hear the journalists clamoring about and squabbling loudly as the door closed.

"Misa!" Mogi was hurrying towards her, clutching her latte in a pink paper cup. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter, Mochi," Misa replied, taking the beverage as a satisfied smile stretched her full red lips. "I'm just done with the conference. Oh, and thankyou for the latte."

Mogi seemed perfectly baffled by this announcement, but after a while gave a shrug.

"Shall we go, then?"

Misa nodded, smiling prettily at him.

"Yes, let's go," she said, starting to walk, her skirt of her dress bouncing to match the gleeful little skip in her step. "My work here is done."

* * *

Light slammed into the floor with stunning intensity.

L had literally jumped him, pouncing from behind and toppling him off the bed. He was still on top of him, pinning one of Light's arms behind his back while grinding his face into the carpet with bruising force. The bland noise of the television still droned on, Misa's "press conference" descending into complete chaos as the reporters each tried to sum up her message and pitch it in a different way; it was obvious that no one had planned for the bomb she had innocently dropped on all their heads.

Light, enraged, yelled and struggled under L's weight, fighting against the hand that was now tangled in his hair pressing his skull down. But when L shifted and Light felt the stony blunt weight of his knee settle across the back of his neck, he knew L had become truly dangerous. He could easily kill him in that position, pressing against the thin vertebrae there, the _breakable_ tubing that held too many important wires… Light stilled, panting in pain, and growled through the carpet;

"L, get off me! That fucking hurts!"

"No. Not this time, Kira."

"I'm not—" Light choked on the words as L leaned forward, pinpointing his body weight onto Light's neck. Pain drilled tight corkscrews of agony through his spine and his face felt like it was being crushed completely flat. He couldn't stop the high-pitched keening sound it forced from his throat, unable to even groan properly with his trachea being crushed.

"Don't deny it anymore, Light-kun," L hissed. "Not when your partner just openly declared your guilt on national television."

"Sh-she didn't say anything!" Light wished he could articulate beyond that, but it was hard enough just talking; his voice was splintered under the pressure.

"She _did_. She said I took Kira into custody – and who else do I find but Light Yagami under my guard?" The detective gave a particularly enthusiastic twist on the captured arm to emphasize his point. Light whined at the extra pain and his legs scrabbled for purchase, anything to get L off of him.

"Does L… always torture… his suspects?" Light managed to grind out.

"Torture?" L paused, sounding sincerely surprised. "It is obvious that you have never read anything by Amnesty International, because _this_…" He leaned down, voice cold and sharp as steel. "This is _nothing_. Besides, Light-kun is no longer merely a suspect."

For the first time since being practically kidnapped by the detective, Light felt true terror rise up within him, the kind that _becomes_ you when faced with the brink of death, with nowhere to turn and nowhere to go but the abyss below; he felt it clamber over his lungs and seize them with needle-like claws. The dreadful truth dawned on him with a sickly alien glow; L was going to _kill_ him. There was nothing to stop him, because he was _right_, and since Misa had practically blasted away any residual doubt, even Light's own denial was null.

L had promised the world that he would give them Kira's head and Light didn't doubt L's ability to get his own hands dirty and deliver on such a promise when he finally gained that elusive one hundred per cent certainty.

He was cornered.

"L, _please_…" Light gasped out, barely daring to struggle now. "Don't do this…!"

The knee pressed down _hard_; hard enough to stop Light's breath, hard enough that he could actually feel the discs in his neck bulging out, threatening to tear under the compression. He flailed, legs kicking out, his one free arms thumping and pulling ineffectually against the ground, while his pinned arm strained painfully against L's grasp, doing anything he possibly could to get even an inch of leeway across his flattened neck, _anything_ to get air—

"Kira," L said emotionlessly, "this is merely punishment for your crimes against the world, for the countless murders you have committed…"

Light's lungs began to burn, his head throbbed with a rapid urgent pulse, and black-spocked fuzz was building up over his vision. The radicular pain that razored over his spine, as L bore down with his full weight, was at the very breaking point. The connections were straining, weakening, trembling under the tension; any extra nudge and his neck would snap completely.

It was the end.

He was going to die in an anonymous hotel room, crushed by his one equal – his one enemy.

But…

The end didn't come.

After a few torturous seconds where the world continued to darken and spin, miraculously, the pressure suddenly lessened, just enough for Light to snatch a gulp of air; just enough to keep him from passing out. And after a few _more_ drawn out seconds, L's grip loosened completely and he drew his hands away as if Light were contagious. He crawled off the coughing man, leaning back against the bed with his knees curled up to his chest. Light stayed on the floor, content to gasp where he was as long as his body could frantically pay its way out of its oxygen debt.

Eventually, with his voice sounding like wet gravel, he croaked out a single question:

"_Why_?"

The rest of it – _Why didn't you kill me?_ – hung silent in the room. Light finally looked up, pain flickering through his neck in protest, and stared at L. And he couldn't do anything _but _stare – not when L was curled up, gazing with a horrified and confused expression at his palms.

"I don't know, Light." He looked up from his hands, his face still holding the foreign emotions. "…_I just don't know_."

* * *

**Narroch: **Whee! What fun! The tension is rising.

**RR: **I… well… That's… certainly _one_ way of putting it, I suppose…

**Narroch:** Huh... Wonder why L stopped. Killing Kira was what he always wanted right? RIGHT?!?

**RR: **And as for Misa… on one hand, you know, it was kind of a smart move. On the other… well, let's just say that she didn't entirely think it through. O.o Clearly it didn't occur to her that everyone who knew that the person L had disappeared with was Light Yagami would be forced to come to the conclusion, based on her information, that Light was Kira – _L included_.

Still, she tried. I don't think Light will appreciate her efforts much, though… O.o

You know, I don't usually get the urge to put little comments on the text in – that's really more Narroch's thing (sometimes I get my drafts back from her with 'witty' little captions all over it in bold). Of course, they never make it to the posted version of the chapter, but although I restrained myself regardless, this chapter _really_ made me want to write 'ALL HAIL BRITANNIA!' after the line 'Kira is not the first ruthless conqueror of the world, and I severely doubt he will be the last'; and write 'Wild One Hundred Per Cent Certainty appeared!' after "…when he finally gained that elusive one hundred per cent certainty".

But that would have just been inappropriate.

**Narroch: **Thanks for reading! Leave us a review, and see you all next chapter. :)

- RobinRocks and Narroch

xXx


	5. Chapter V

**Narroch:** Yes, here we are again with yet another delightful chapter. It has been a while, and I know we promised faster updates, but that sorta just failed. It was entirely my fault this took so long. Sorry guys! You can rest assured that the next chapter is already under construction!

**RR: **Nyes, I'm sure the entire readership will join me in a "Surprise, surprise" sentiment directed towards your admission of the slowness of this update being entirely down to you, Narroch. Because, well, really…

Surprise, surprise.

**Narroch:** A HUGE thankyou to everyone who reviewed our story! Your comments mean so much to us! Special thanks go to: **teito13, ****OneWhoSitsWithTheTurtles, ****xXPixiexxStikXx, SutaakiHitori, xHelloPinkPandaX, rain angst, Deus3xMachina, EmoButterfly1, NeoAddctee, Tainted Ink And Paper, Meany, re-harakhti, Xelena, darkbloodymoon, Liviania, heitone, Tamouri, sadevesi, Perdue, Mime in the Water****, ****Quiet, -Red Angel-Blue Angel-, Shakuhachi Jade, ****silverfox, ****Famirka, Little Ryuu, MattTheGamer, Scripta Lexicona, ****?, ****rein hitomi, HPANDHGFOREVA, ChasingCaffeine, Cursed Cain, Synonymous Brian, Melodic Masterpiece, Gabi Howard, bookenworum, Seidene Asche, larsa7, HereIGoAgain, Soul-Jazz, Bligy, Star Jinin, Sexykill69, yAmAmoTO'13, Nardaviel, 4udball, TheRoseByAnyOtherName, BewaretheArd-Ri, Apophenia, Viskii, PikaNecoMico, Pseudo Hanyou, AuraBlackWolf** and **Kutsushita-Socks**!

**RR: **Yes, really, thankyou all so much for the reviews! I didn't realise we had so many (**204**, last I saw) until I went on my FFNet profile the other day and idly looked at the review count… So, yes, thankyou! We're glad you like _The Monster You Made_!

**Narroch: **Aaaand, without further ado, here is chapter five.

The Monster You Made – V

All revolutions have points: Some are complex, some are simple.

The main point of Kira's revolution was very simple. As hard as life was, injustice and powerlessness in the face of unstoppable violations made it doubly hard. Crime was harmful to everyone whose life it touched, and the eradication of injustice and powerlessness was a goal that would not be achieved easily or quickly. Justice could not be bought cheaply. Peace had to be paid for with the blood of criminals.

It was difficult, too, to create, maintain, and extend a revolution. Kira had to make the blood of iniquity run through the streets before people began to notice, before they began to understand that it wasn't a string of freak accidents, but a conscious force propelling the death toll.

Evil still existed. Twisted politics remained. Class struggles went on – and so, too, the struggle of every oppressed group denied human dignity by persistent systems of inequality.

But through Kira, hope, though tempered in the midst of so much despair, had been ignited. Kira's small dent in the social sphere had given people a path to follow, an example to admire. And of course, in that sense, the largest question pertained not to political parties but to the popular will and the engagement of the silent masses in a history that was not in their control, but which nonetheless had to reckon with them.

It couldn't be called a revolution if it was only one person making a change.

But Kira made sure everyone knew. Kira made certain his revolution was more than just a string of names, that it transcended heart attacks until death became a metaphor under his control: of good and evil, of right and wrong, of blessed and damned.

Kira wanted to ensure that his message reverberated throughout the world until no-one could ignore him, whether they agreed or not.

And he succeeded—

—Because the world was watching.

* * *

_He asked me why Kira kills._

_Hypothetical question – on the basis that he couldn't prove what he knew. It was a trap, one in which he never expected me to become ensnared, but which he carefully laid out anyway._

_So, hypothetical answer – on the basis that he couldn't prove what he knew._

_Because he knew. We both knew that he knew. But even with the Death Note in his clutches, he couldn't prove a thing against me or Misa._

_Misa. M. How fitting. M for 'mistake'._

_Why does Kira kill?_

_Maybe out of anger. Because I'd kill Misa right now, if only I could. Oh, I know she was trying to help – to save me, in her own little way. But as with everything Misa does, she didn't think it through, probably not even a little. She pretty much __**told**__ L that I'm Kira. And to someone like L, her little stunt was an admission of her own guilt as well. She almost cost me my life – and may still have. _

_I don't know what's wrong with him. I've always known how dangerous he is; so even if his attack on me back there frightened me, it didn't really surprise me all that much. _

_To be honest, I expected him to kill me._

_He didn't. At the last moment, he couldn't do it. Is this, after everything, what sets us apart? He's the one who likes to make such a point of saying how similar Kira is to himself, and in turn how similar I am to __**him**__. Typical L Mathematics. Though I can see his point on several counts – certainly I've never met anyone who is as much my equal as L. Truthfully, the thing I have always credited with dividing us is the fact that I'm Kira and he's the guy trying to catch Kira._

_A line entitled The Law._

_But maybe it's less than even that. After all, during that silly chasing-in-circles "conversation" we had barely an hour ago, he agreed with some of Kira's ethos and acknowledged that some of the reasons for my campaign were just._

_So maybe, in the end, what it really comes down to is that he can't kill._

_Is it a fear of staining his hands with blood? It can't be because he thinks killing in of itself is wrong – he promised death to Kira. So is it a terror of connecting physically to the act of killing, rather than the killing itself? It seems to me that he has no problem with it if he can be involved from the behind the mask of the law. Because if that's the case, I can't call that justice or a moral high-ground._

_I can only call that cowardice – employed for the sake of self-preservation._

_These people need to die. It's the only way. I deliberated long and hard over using the Death Note to change the world, and in the end, I was forced to conclude that there was no other way the world was going to cured of its sickness. Our law systems are weak. There are too many loopholes. People who deserve to be punished aren't. Look at the man who murdered Misa's parents – if I hadn't judged him, he'd have gone free after killing two people and ruining a young girl's life. Of course, my sympathy for Misa has depleted somewhat since being forced into a partnership with her, but the principle remains the same: _

_He deserved to be punished._

_I believe in freewill. I believe that people are capable of being good or evil, and those that do evil choose to do so. If that was where it ended, that would be alright, because that's their choice. But it's a given that those who do evil usually hurt good people in some way or other. That is unforgivable. Why should it be that a fifteen year old girl – someone like my sister – can't walk home at night from a friend's house without the fear of being murdered? Why should it be that someone has to ensure that every door and window of their house is tightly locked every time they go out for fear of someone breaking into it? People commit crimes out of selfishness and arrogance, because they don't care who they hurt and because they think they won't be caught._

_So I'm changing not only the world, but the world's mentality. Evil won't be tolerated anymore._

_So, L, why does Kira kill?_

_Because he has to—_

_And because he can._

* * *

Kira had been the only one willing to follow this chain of thinking to its logical conclusion, and the only one with the power to see it realized. So when Kira was supposedly captured, it was as though a keystone had been yanked out of place and the entire mountain began to crumble; though the avalanche itself was eerily silent.

After Misa's announcement, there were no riots; there were no angry phone calls or picket lines demanding his release. People didn't know how to protest against a letter, how to disagree with a phantom detective. And with no outlet and with nowhere else to go, the rage turned inward. Turned poisonous. All the vindicated victims felt betrayed by the system, all the neophyte criminals reformed by fear felt lost again, all the unaffected masses, who never cared about Kira or his mission, felt a new paranoia creep in that hadn't existed before, and even the naysayers, the ones fighting against Kira and who cheered at the announcement, wondered quietly to themselves, '_But at what cost?_'.

Revolutions are not maintained by people whose faces are in the mud. They are most frequently sustained by people who have just recently lifted their faces out of the mud, looked around and realized there was something better. By taking away the one who had given them hope for a better reality, it was as if L was shoving their heads back down into the grime, back into the old systems of injustice.

It had been good enough in the past, but no-one thought it was adequate now that they knew what a crime-free world looked like.

No one could stomach the thought of going back to the way things were.

The revolution had already gained too much momentum, too much awareness of itself.

They couldn't demand change from L, so instead they focused on themselves, on what powers they had to find their inverted Christ and put him back on his cross where he could continue killing for their sins. As they grumbled amongst themselves, degrees of separation dissolving under the collective heat of their voices, the will of humanity began to solidify in the shadows.

* * *

_They locked me in my room._

_I thought they'd question me, but no-one has really spoken to me at all, not even Mochi._

_Well, I don't care. Nobody messes with Misa Amane. People will help find Light, I just know it. I'm not the only one who knows that Kira is good and accepts him as a saviour – and I felt it was my duty to tell the world that our saviour has been captured by the one person bent on his destruction._

_I could help Light more if I had my memories, or even just my notebook. Right now, my only weapon is Rem, and I know that she's restricted in what she can do to aid me. Light said something about having buried my notebook, but he didn't tell me where and I'm not free to leave and go get it anyway. Rem can't get it because she's not allowed to interfere directly with the human world, so right now I've done all I can to help Light._

_I hope he's okay. God knows what that creepy L is doing to him. But it'll be alright. L didn't think that Kira would have an army._

_He has no idea what he's gotten himself into._

_I don't care what they do to him, as long as they save Light. They can hang him or torture him to death or hack him into little pieces, as long as Light is rescued from him. Kira is the figurehead of the establishment of the new world order – the god of a world in which only good people are permitted to exist. That's what he said, and he said that I'll be his goddess. Even if L isn't evil, if he stands in the way of that world, then he deserves to die. If he doesn't acknowledge Light's utopia, then he doesn't deserve to live in it._

_Though I think he doesn't deserve to live for what he's done, too. I can't forgive him taking Light away from me. I love Light more than anything in the entire world. He punished my parents' killer when nobody else would. He understood my pain and served justice. It didn't give me back my parents, but it gave me back my faith in humanity. The law didn't care, but Kira did._

_Light did._

_That's why I acknowledge Kira above the law. Justice shouldn't be measured by stupid rules, so rigid that people can slip through them when it suits judges and lawyers. Justice should be measured by human compassion, by an understanding of the pain of victims of crime, and by an absolute intolerance for both evil and those who commit it._

_So those who heard my message, save Kira._

_Save Light Yagami – so he can save us._

* * *

Demegawa sighed as he scanned the weekly television rating print outs. Since his station had been taken hostage by Kira all those months ago, their ratings had spiked and remained consistently high, as though people were anxiously waiting for another message from their saviour.

Though, as time wore on, he could clearly see the downward trend. People were beginning to look elsewhere for information when it became obvious that Kira, much like lightning, wasn't likely to strike the same spot twice. Demegawa had realized that also, long ago, but hadn't admitted it aloud. He still proclaimed himself to be Kira's hand-selected spokesperson and proudly bragged to anyone who would listen about his involvement.

But skimming a profit off pro-Kira propaganda stories wasn't enough. Demegawa craved more – sweeter dealings, so to speak, with the source. Having tapped – at least in his mind – into such a powerful pipeline, he couldn't go back to airing crummy tabloid stories. But as soon as the deal with the infamous Kira tapes was done, the connection had ceased. There was no way for Demegawa to reach out to Kira on his own. His "sure thing" evaporated before his eyes, and people were starting to notice.

Rather than being the first station with news about Kira, his reporters always seemed to be the last to know; their breaking news was always a few hours too stale. He didn't even bother watching the other stations anymore since their news stories always put him into an impotent rage at the ineptitude of his own reporters. He had considered firing all of them on more than one occasion; it was only the huge hassle of rehiring a new team that stopped him.

It was easy to blame them, easy to believe they interfered with his connection to Kira rather than admit that the killing god had moved on.

He looked over the rating sheets propped in his hand to glance at the easel board across the room holding the pitch design of his "Kira's Kingdom" programme. It would only be a little longer before the set design was finished and then he could start raking in the ratings once again. He ground his teeth in irritation before murmuring under his breath;

"If you want something done right…"

He took out a cigarette, lit it, and drew the smoke deeply into his lungs; let it simmer there, soak into the blood, before he slowly forced it out through his nose in two thick plumes.

"…You gotta do it yourself." He popped his feet up onto his desk and let the chemicals soothe his frustrated nerves. Half of the slender cigarette had disappeared into blue smoke when the phone beside his feet began to ring. With a snort, he sat up and stubbed out the cigarette.

"Sakura TV, this is Demegawa," he answered the phone gruffly.

There was a clicking noise, then a sound like paper being crumbled floated over the line. Demegawa sneered and was on the verge of hanging up when a gravelly voice finally came across:

"I am sure that by now you have heard the news about Kira's capture."

There was a long pause as Demegawa tried to understand what had been said. Not only was the caller obviously trying to mask his voice, either via a distortion program or his own vocal manipulation, making it hard to hear, but Demegawa also couldn't comprehend the meaning of the words being said.

_Kira… captured?! And I didn't know about it!_

The dead silence strangling his thoughts grew painful. In contrast to his wordless, trembling lips, his heartbeat pounded painfully at his temples and his ears buzzed as if rejecting what he was hearing.

Quickly, before the shock could numb him further, he fumbled for the remote and turned his personal office television set on, flipping to the nearest news channel. There the unforgiving message replayed itself; the concreteness of the flashing headline crawled to the center of his brain, cementing the truth of what he had been told.

And yet, despite the oppressing weight of the real, Demegawa could not comprehend what he was seeing.

It wasn't the downfall of Kira and his mission that bothered Demegawa, but the fact that his cash cow was being led away by some clandestine detective.

The man on the other end of the line gave a questioning hum and Demegawa shakily replied, "Yes, I, uh- just found out about it…"

"And as a vocal Kira supporter, I am sure you can't accept what is being done, can you?"

"N-no, I can assure that I will not stand for this alleged arrest," Demegawa stuttered in return, sales figures already whirling about in his head, calculating his losses and working together speeches decrying Kira's arrest.

"Then would you be willing to lend us your aid, in both your leadership and resources, as we free our saviour?"

Demegawa was startled out of his deliberations by the forward request. Leading a mob for breaking and entering wasn't exactly what he had in mind, not to mention that the caller was beginning to sound like one of the Kira fanatics who worshipped the killings as miracles. He had intended to make a profit off these nut-jobs by creating a cheap temple for them, but Demegawa was much too shrewd to consider working with them beyond cash, credit, or checks. The man noticed Demegawa's hesitation and immediately cut in:

"As someone who was contacted directly by Kira, we thought it fitting that you deliver the news of his release to the world."

Demegawa gave a small start.

"You want me to televise you guys breaking into a prison? I don't think—"

"It isn't a prison," the caller interrupted again. "We have loyalists in the police department who know the location of L's task force, as well as information about the layout of the building. This isn't going to be a disorganized rabble, but an elite revolutionary force. And it will be _you _that the world sees."

The steely determination in his voice as well as the impressive insider information reassured Demegawa, but it was the promise of fame that caused him to grin.

"Well, then…" was his carefully-precisioned reply, "…what is your plan to release our Lord Kira?"

* * *

_Sometimes I forget that he's younger than me._

_Perhaps that's not saying much – I might be seven years older than him, but I acknowledge myself to have something of a rather childish mentality._

_But I'm not a child; and, on the contrary, in a lot of ways, he still is._

_Light Yagami. It's never been more obvious than it is right now. His age. His mentality. Of course I knew he was Kira – and he knew that I knew. _

_We also both knew that there was a possibility that I would never be able to prove it._

_This was before Misa Amane publicly announced his guilt on national television. Let it be said that, towards Light at least, Amane is incredibly well-meaning – that is, I am certain that she did not intend to put him in any kind of danger. Her way of thinking is incredibly simple. I believe she acts almost entirely on emotion alone. Perhaps she is actually incapable of rationalizing or simply prefers not to. She is, I expect, what would be called a "romantic" – governed exclusively by feeling over thought._

_Either way, it's easy to unravel the meaning behind her actions. She's powerless against me herself, and so hopes that Kira's followers will take heed of her words and rally to save their god._

_There are so many flaws with this plan that it does not worry me. Misa Amane is the Second Kira, but she isn't a threat. Light rendered her completely powerless when they began to work together – that much was obvious in the sudden change in the Second Kira's behavior, way back before the pair of them were even incarcerated. _

_And Light may be Kira – as I've always thought – but, at present, he isn't a threat either. If he was able to kill me, he'd have done it by now. The fact that I'm still alive proves that he can't._

_And I can't kill him._

_I don't know why I stopped. It was only at the very last moment, in the final seconds before his spine snapped completely, that I realized that I couldn't do it._

_But I don't know why._

_I suppose I would still consider him to be the tenuous "friend" I always have, even now that I know he's guilty – because I always knew, really, that he was guilty, and was friends with him anyway. But it isn't that which protects him from me, because even if I'm his friend, I always knew he was Kira, and I always believed that Kira deserved death for his crimes._

_This doesn't change anything apart from the fact that I know I'm not wrong._

_Maybe I couldn't do it because it would cross the line that separates us – a line that, at times, is barely there._

_I didn't set out to be friends with him. I didn't think I would ever end up liking him. He always came across as arrogant and spoiled and uptight. Even if I admired his intelligence, he never seemed like someone I would be comfortable with. Maybe I'm all of those things myself, but I didn't think I'd be able to get along with someone harbouring those attributes._

_But he wasn't like that – well, at least not as much as I had expected him to be. And our minds are so alike we often almost think in tandem. I'd never met anyone like him before – never met an equal._

_So he's my equal. That's why I was drawn into my first ever friendship. _

_But he's Kira, and always has been._

_We've discussed it numerous times. In the end, it's not that I completely disagree with Kira's ideals. Our mentality entails the idea of evil deserving to be punished – and the means to the end is death._

_For the crime of dealing death, I promised to deal him death._

_Even if I don't accept Kira, I understand._

_I don't believe that Light is evil, truly. I don't even believe that his intentions are evil. But I think that his morals are warped and his sense of justice twisted. Still trapped in the absolute black-and-white way of thinking of a child, he believes that what he is doing is good, but no matter how pure his intentions, I maintain that he is a murderer and nothing more._

_And if I accept Kira, then I am accepting that I could just as easily be Kira as Light Yagami._

_I could be a murderer too, if only I could kill._

* * *

Misa had been wrong in thinking that there were Kira supporters in high enough positions to force L to relinquish his grasp on his suspect. No-one, Kira supporter or not, had that kind of power over L; he could, and _would_, do what he liked, regardless of what the world leaders requested of him. But Misa _had_ been right in thinking that there was a hidden army under Kira's sway:

It only took her little nudge to unite them.

They gathered that very day, from all walks of life, from all backgrounds, from every nook and cranny within the woodworks of the world. From a thousand places and nowhere at all, converging on Tokyo like flies to a carcass, silent and hungry. Though many came, the only ones specifically called were those with specific talents. Hackers, police force members, weapons specialists, reporters, tacticians… Not a single one of them had a chance of outsmarting L alone, but combined, their collective knowledge was a reckoning force.

Not to mention the homicidal drive pushing them forward, forcing them to drop their fears, making them willing martyrs for Kira and his cause.

The chosen few, around two dozen people, gathered in the shadows of the Sakura Television station, darkened by the late hour. It was quite obviously closed, same as every other building on the block, but inside a man beckoned them to enter. The group slipped in silently, masked by the darkness.

They began to talk, awkwardly and hesitantly at first, but quickly overcoming their nervous fear as the hours wore on. Schematics were pulled out, computers set up, recording equipment packed and repacked as they began to lay out their plans.

They all agreed they needed to act soon, for who knew when L would pick the execution date?

It was decided, unanimously, that, like so many other battles in history, they would attack at dawn.

* * *

_It's over, then._

_I don't know if it's that I never truly did believe that my son is Kira, or simply that I never __**wanted**__ to._

_L took him and they both vanished without a trace, but while everything within me tells me that I should be worried for my child's safety, Amane's "confession" has left me utterly without feeling._

_Everything, all these months of hard work, all that pain before, when he was incarcerated and I, almost beside myself with despair, demanded that I be locked away too…_

_I don't whose safety it was for, really. I just didn't know what to do. Facing the possibility that my own child could be Kira was simply too horrible to stand. That, and that sick little play L scripted to test if they were Kiras, back in the car with a gun aimed at my own son's head, telling him I would see him in Hell._

_Before the notebook, the fact that I didn't die in that car at the hands of Amane served as proof enough that neither she nor Light were Kiras._

_But we didn't know about the notebook._

_Not that it matters how Kira kills. Not now. The damage is done. Light is Kira. _

_My son is a murderer—_

_And I don't know what to do. How do I tell Sachiko? What do I say to Sayu? When will I ever be able face anyone ever again and not think that they're judging me – blaming me – for having brought a monster into the world?_

_The feeling is alien. I've never been anything but proud of him. He's respectful and kind and courteous, his grades are excellent and he works hard to maintain them. I've never thought to ask anything more of him – I've never needed to._

_But now it's as if… he's pulled the mask off, and underneath is something so unholy I can hardly bear to acknowledge him as recognizable, never mind as my own son. All the lies and solemn words, promising to catch Kira should anything happen to me… I feel as if I imagined him saying all those things, conjuring them from a hopeful dream that L was wrong._

_I detest Kira and his methods. I cannot accept them, and refuse to stand down to his laws while I still live – and even if that devil takes the form of the child I love, I won't be swayed. _

_Kira is wrong._

_But it's not only anger, and it's not only grief. I've always pitied Kira, because I've always believed that he didn't realise that having the power to kill as he does is a curse and not a gift. _

_And the curse has fallen upon Light, and now I feel that the only thing I can do is stand back and watch helplessly as it devours my son._

_Kira – Light – is wrong, but he's not evil. Even if I despise everything about what he has become, I know that he is not evil._

_But the power to end lives is, and if he can't realize that, then perhaps he __**deserves**__ to be destroyed by it._

* * *

The windows to the lobby shattered in a cacophony of alarms, though they were quickly silenced through a subroutine as the preliminary security system was hacked. Heavy-soled boots came charging in, strangely quiet beyond the footfalls, and they headed in the exact direction of the main headquarters.

The break-in was swift, efficient, and by the time Watari noticed the secondary silent alarm flashing on one of L's many computer screens, the intruders were already placing their charges on the door hinges. He only managed to get out a single shout of warning before the contained explosion echoed through the room and the door went flying off of its jamb.

* * *

_L Lawliet…_

_I don't think you know what you're doing._

* * *

**Narroch: **Does anyone else have the distinct desire to go on a B&E right about now? Cause I know I do. Maybe... maybe the Kira Crazies just wanted to kick a door in...? :I

**RR:** Narroch rather kindly stuck a link to a segment of a Dane Cook stand-up routine talking about "B&E" (breaking and entering) from YouTube here, but we all know that FFNet devours links like… I dunno. _Lucky Charms_? O.o

Uh, anyway, I removed the link before FFNet did. If you want to see the clip, just type 'Dane Cook, B&E' into the YouTube search bar. It's pretty funny. :)

**Narroch: **Thanks again for reading, drop us a review! Let us know what you think! And take a breath, cause next chapter... the shit is gonna hit the fan. :D

**RR: **But it'll probably take another three months. You know, just saying.

xXx


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